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    Artist

  • Unknown Artist

    • Title

  • Süss Oppenheimer

    • Other Title(s)

  • Joseph Suess Oppenheimer (1698-1738)

  • Physical Description

    Engraving : ink on paper ; 16.3" x 13.6" ; 41.5 x 34.6 centimeters

  • Date

    undated

  • Summary

    The main area of the print is given over to what looks like a regular formal portrait of the Court Jew, Joseph Suess in court costume, except that two small devils are hovering around him. Beneath him is the cage in which he was executed. Over him are small figures of contemporary Jews and the text, reading: “Ein Bub voll böser That und Tück / verdienet alle Pein und Strick.” [A lad of evil doings and gall / deserves all agony and the gallows.]

    The German text at the bottom declares that an impudent Jew, Süß Oppenheimer, full of haughtiness and lechery, abused the patronage of high masters and deserved to end at the gallows.

  • Depicted

    Süss-Oppenheimer, Joseph, 1698 or 1699-1738

  • Subject

    Eighteenth century; Antisemitism, Germany, 18th century; Court Jews; Caricatures and cartoons

  • Genre

    Portraits; Cartoons (Commentary) German

  • Medium

    Engravings; Prints; Drawings

  • Accession Number

  • URL

Biographical/Historical Information

The banker and Court Jew Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was born in Heidelberg in ca. 1698, the son of a Jewish tax collector. By the 1720s, Oppenheimer was Court Jew in Mannheim, Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, and Stuttgart, where he was appointed chief financial adviser to the Duke of Württemberg, Karl Alexander of Württemberg in 1733. As soon as Karl Alexander died in 1737, Oppenheimer was arrested and accused of various unproven crimes. Jew Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was sentenced to death and executed on February 4, 1738.

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Citation

Unknown Artist: Süss Oppenheimer, Leo Baeck Institute, 78.413.