The Haggadah

Quarto. Unpaginated (56 double-leaved pages). Blue faux velvet binding in gold-lined three-quarter black cloth over blue cloth clamshell box with blue faux velvet lining. Beveled edges. Front and rear of book as well as front of clamshell box decorated with gold-stamped Kiddush Goblet motif, gold-embossed decoration on spine of box. Inside of front and back board illustrated with b/w reproduction of a drawing by Szyk. Color frontispiece. English & Hebrew title-pages. "It has been left to a contemporary, Arthur Szyk, to rediscover the secret and to revive the art - not in terms of Jewish books alone, for his reputation is co-extensive with the book-loving world. To call him the greatest illuminator since the sixteenth-century is no flattery. It is the simple truth which becomes manifest to any person who studies his work with the care it deserves. Alone perhaps among modern artists (for he is an artist above all) Szyk considers his art in the terms of books, and books in the terms of his art. He does not illuminate a page, as many before him have attempted to do, considering it to be a unit in itself. He thinks of each page in its relation to the text and to the volume, integrating calligraphy, illumination, illustration and narrative into one harmonious whole. It is in this, even more than in the exquisite perfection of his work, that he inherits the spirit of his medieval precursors.Szyk sees the Haggadah as a unity. He worked upon it between 1932 and 1938, when the greatest perhaps of all the tragedies in its millennial history overwhelmed the Jewish people. It was natural therefore for him to be absorbed in that wonderful passage, the keynote of the whole ritual: It is this Devine pledge that hath stood by our fathers and by us also. Not only one man hath risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation have men risen against us to destroy us. But the Holy One (Blessed be He!) delivereth us always from their hand." Profusely illustrated with reproductions of exquisite illuminations and drawings by Szyk in brilliant rich colors. Text in English and Hebrew. Clamshell box with very light rubbing and scuffing, small light water stain on cover, overall in good, binding with minor chips, interior in near fine condition.