NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s annual December auctions of Important Judaica and Israeli & International Art concluded yesterday in New York with a combined total of $5.5 million. From important manuscripts to ceremonial silver and fine art, below is a look at what drove the results:

IMPORTANT JUDAICA, INCLUDING A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE COLLECTION
Auction Total: $3.6 Million
The offering of books and manuscripts was led by the only known Kabbalistic Manuscript with Autograph Notes by Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz, one of the preeminent kabbalists of the 18th century – which sold for $325,000 (estimate $250/350,000). Considered an extraordinary kabbalist by his contemporaries and by subsequent scholars, Eibeschuetz likely wrote well over one hundred amulets and authored at least two full-length Kabbalistic tracts. Despite his prodigious literary activity, precious few autograph manuscripts of Eibeschuetz’s survive, making its sale all the more remarkable.

Strong interest in the Second Oldest Recorded Pre-Expulsion Sephardic Torah Scroll to come to market led the historic manuscript to achieve $250,000 (estimate $200/300,000). The scroll is remarkable not only for its rarity as a survivor of the expulsions of Jews from medieval Iberia, but even more so as a testament to the exactitude and skill of one of the most esteemed scribes of medieval Toledo, Israel ben Isaac Ben Israel.

After much pre-sale excitement, An Exceedingly Rare Ketubbah from Jamaica, the first of its kind to appear at auction, sold for $11,875 (estimate $8/12,000). Dated 1884, the contract celebrates the marriage of David ben Abraham Nunes Henriques and Amy bat Alfred Delgado in Kingston. The bride’s grandfather, Moses Delgado, was a major figure in the history of Jewish Jamaica, lauded for his efforts in the successful campaign in 1831 fighting for full civil rights for Jews.

An Exquisite Parokhet (Torah Ark Curtain) from 1755, which bears witness to the textile craft practiced by Jewish women in early modern Italy, stood out amongst the offering of decorative objects in yesterday’s sale, selling for $125,000 to the Saint Louis Art Museum. Embroidered in a variety of stitches on royal blue silk ground with multicolored silk threads, the curtain features an elaborate central cartouche containing clusters of grapes hanging form vines and surrounded by a lavish border of fruit and floral motifs, including pomegranates, carnations, and roses – all combined to form a dynamic and dramatic pattern. The prominently located clusters of grapes hanging on vines may allude the family name of the woman who created this sumptuous textile, Simha Viterbo, as it is a visual reference to the Italian word for grapevine - vite.

A Rare and Large Hungarian Parcel-Gilt Set of Torah Crown and Pair of Finials made in Budapest in 1780 by Johannes Mathias Roth led yesterday’s auction of silver and metalwork from a Distinguished Private Collection, selling for $187,500 (estimate $150/250,000). Additional silver highlights included an incredibly ornate rococo-style parcel-gilt silver Torah Shield mounted with hardstones created circa 1770, which was acquired by the North Carolina Museum of Art for $100,000.

ISRAELI & INTERNATIONAL ART
Auction Total: $1.9 Million
Multiple auction records were broken during Tuesday’s sale of Israeli & International Art, which was led by a rare work by premier Israeli artist Nahum Gutman. Painted in the late 1920’s, Gutman’s idyllic Tiberias Landscape sold for $250,000 - establishing a new auction record for the artist previously established by Sotheby’s in 2001. Acquired directly from the artist, this important masterpiece has been held in the same private collection since it was painted and has been exhibited on long term loan to the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. It has also been included in a major retrospective of the artist’s work in 1984 at the Tel Aviv Museum.

The sale also established a new auction record for Yosl Bergner, as his surreal triptych Kushan (The Deed), achieved $162,500. In this masterpiece of historical fantasy, Sir Herbert Samuel, High Commissioner of British occupied Palestine, rides high through the masterwork, waiving a scroll of paper with Turkish text, a Kushan, or land deed. Bergner illustrates Samuel, the first Jewish governor of the territory in modern times, as a heroic figure, one of the first benefactors of the Jewish homeland. The artist’s characteristic figures, with dark eyes and quiet smiles, look out their windows at the British Zionist arriving on horseback, riding down the coast with land rights in hand. The Ottoman soldiers in the lower left panel may reference the expulsion of Jews from Tel Aviv in 1914, who were only able to return to their homes after the British conquest of Palestine