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    Artist

  • Luiken, Caspar, 1672-1708

    • Title

  • Jewish Man and Woman from Frankfurt

    • Other Title(s)

  • Franckfurther Jud und Jüdin

  • Physical Description

    Engraving : ink on paper ; 13.5" x 8.4" (34.3 x 21.3 cm.)

  • Date

    1703

  • Summary

    The print was first published in a celebrated volume of 101 costume plates created by the Dutch artist Caspar Luyken (1672-1708), “Neu-eröffnete Welt-Galleria”, Nürnberg; 1703.

    The couple from Frankfurt is shown in everyday garb, perhaps on their way home from the market. The man is wearing a broad-brimmed hat, and a knee-length cloak; the woman is shown in a distinctive bonnet with cone-shaped wings and a wide, pleated ruff. Although ruffs were fashionable and worn by the general population of Germany and Flanders during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they survived as a distinctive feature of Jewish costume into the eighteenth century.

  • Subject

    Clothing and dress in art; Eighteenth century; Jews, Social life and customs; Jews in art

  • Medium

    Engravings; Prints

  • Accession Number

  • URL

Biographical/Historical Information

The volume of prints, “Neu-eröffnete Welt-Galleria”, featured magnificent portraits of European nobility as well as images of people from a variety of nations. Its introduction was written by the famous preacher Abraham a Sancta Clara. In 1677, Sancta Clara was appointed the Imperial Court preacher in Vienna. He was known for his rabid anti-Semitism as well as his hatred of the "infidel" Turks. In the introduction to the “Neu-eröffnete Welt-Galleria” Sancta Clara stated that one should study this volume so as to be able to differentiate one class from another. Furthermore, Sancta Clara inveighed against those individuals, who dress themselves in the clothes of other nations. Despite Sancta Clara's vituperative attitudes, the images in this volume were decidedly neutral, neither mocking nor caricaturing the subjects. It is conceivable that the artist, Luyken, who was raised in the tolerant city of Amsterdam, did not share Sancta Clara's negative point of view.

Dutch painter and printmaker Caspar Luyken traveled to Nuremberg in 1699, and for the next six years he collaborated with the noted German print publisher and art dealer Christoph Weigel on the production of numerous illustrated books.

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Citation

Luiken, Caspar: Jewish Man and Woman from Frankfurt, Leo Baeck Institute, 78.1397.