Torah shield. Breslau, Germany (today Wrocław, Poland), ca. 1810.
Silver, repoussé, stamped, and engraved (marked with city mark of Breslau [faded]; year mark, probably the letter "N" for 1804-1813, maker's mark "GW/H" framed inside heart shape = the silversmith Gottfried Wilhelm Hoensch; and with Prussian tax mark, in use in years 1809-1812).
At the top of the Torah shield is a three-dimensional crown in relief, attached by screws, protruding forward. At right and left of center are a pair of spiraling architectonic columns supported on square bases and surmounted by repoussé crowns. In between the columns, at center, are the Two Tablets of the Law (engraved in Hebrew with the abbreviated Ten Commandments), adorned on either side with leafy branches. At bottom is a convex cartouche engraved with the (Hebrew) dedicatory inscription: "Belongs to the Glogau Synagogue, here Breslau". Three-part suspension chain, held together with a large suspension ring.
The silversmith Gottfried Wilhelm Hoensch, son of the silversmith Christian Hoensch, was active in Breslau in the years 1780-1811. His maker’s mark also appears on the silver chest in the form of an elegant miniature Torah ark, belonging to the Rothschild family (created by silversmith Johann Christoph Müller), sold in 2014 at Christie’s, New York, and today part of the collection of Ariel Muzicant, Vienna. The present Torah shield is mentioned in Erwin Hintze's volume on the silversmiths of Breslau (1906, see below) as belonging to the Pinkus Collection in Neustadt, Upper Silesia (today Prudnik, Poland). Other than these two works, we have no information with regard to other Jewish items Hoensch may have created.
Height: 27 cm. Width: 21 cm. Weight: 397 g. Good condition. Minor warping. Several fractures to lower edge, mended with old repairs, soldering, and addition of minute silver pieces on back.
Reference: Erwin Hintze, Die Breslauer Goldschmiede; eine archivalische Studie, Breslau: Kommissionsverlag von K.W. Hiersemann in Leipzig, 1906 (German), Nos. 23-24, 42, 172, Fig. 9a, and p. 88.
