Auction 104 Part 1 Rare and Important Items
Oct 21, 2025
Displaying 25 - 32 of 32
Auction 104 Part 1 Rare and Important Items
Oct 21, 2025
Opening: $8,000
Estimate: $20,000 - $30,000
Sold for: $16,250
Including buyer's premium
Pair of Torah finials by Reyndert Ringnalda. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, [1770s].
Silver, cast, repoussé, and pierced. Marked with the Amsterdam city mark, Amsterdam fineness mark, and the silversmith’s mark RR (Reyndert Ringnalda); later mark M2, probably a Dutch assayer mark.
Each finial features a hexagonal tower-shaped body composed of two tiers, each surrounded by balconies, and surmounted by a parcel-gilt crown. Each of the sides is decorated with vegetal motifs and Rococo-style shell ornaments, with a central window featuring a gilt bell. Each finial is assembled from six individual sections set around a central rod mounted on a stem.
No other Judaica items by this silversmith are currently known. His known silverwork, which consists primarily of tableware, is dated to the 1770s through 1780. For further information, see: Citroen, Amsterdam Silversmiths and their Marks (1975), no. 795.
Height: 37.5 cm. Max. width: 11.5 cm. Good condition. Some of the bells may be later.
Category
Torah Ornaments
Catalogue Value
Auction 104 Part 1 Rare and Important Items
Oct 21, 2025
Opening: $3,000
Estimate: $10,000 - $15,000
Sold for: $8,125
Including buyer's premium
Pair of Torah finials by silversmith Carl Friedrich Schönberg. Nuremberg, Germany, [1830s-1840s].
Silver, cast, pierced, stamped and engraved; parcel-gilt. Marked with the city mark of Nuremberg (the letter N), fineness mark 13, and maker’s mark CS within a square frame (Carl Friedrich Schönberg).
The present finials are predominantly parcel-gilt, and are adorned with floral motifs and arched apertures, each enclosing a suspended bell. The top of each finial features a crown-shaped ornament with a central bell, surmounted by a rampant lion holding a blank oval medallion. The lower section features shell-shaped decorations. Each finial is composed of three separate sections joined by screws and nuts. The stems are threaded and detachable.
Several additional Torah ornaments by Carl Friedrich Schönberg are known, including three Torah shields, a Torah pointer, and two other pairs of finials: one pair is kept in the Jewish Museum New York (inv. no. F-1899; Grafman no. 303), and another in the Cymbalista Collection (see: "50 Rimonim", no. 39; the upper crown ornaments of Torah finials no. 35 in the same collection were also made by Schönberg).
Height: 39.5 cm. Max. width: 11.5 cm. Overall good condition. Minor bends.
Category
Torah Ornaments
Catalogue Value
Auction 104 Part 1 Rare and Important Items
Oct 21, 2025
Opening: $3,000
Estimate: $20,000 - $30,000
Sold for: $37,500
Including buyer's premium
Pair of Torah finials by silversmith Maurice Mayer. [Paris, ca. 1860].
Silver, repoussé, stamped, cut, and pierced. Marked with French fineness marks, and with maker’s marks: "M. Mayer" within a lozenge frame and additional mark "Mce. Mayer".
Tall Torah finials, designed as towers with tall, pointed, polygonal spires topped with flame-shaped ornaments. Each body consists of six sides, each pierced with a large arch supported by architectural columns. The center of each arch features a Star of David, functioning as a hanger for a bell. Matching horseshoe arches are pierced into the spire panels.
Silversmith
Maurice Mayer (b. 1801) was active in Paris from 1839 (his personal maker’s mark was registered in 1846). He signed his works with the title "Maurice Mayer Orfèvre de l'Empereur Paris" (Silversmith to the Emperor [Napoleon III]). His work was exhibited and awarded at various 19th-century Parisian expositions, and his Judaica objects are kept in prominent public and private collections, including: three pairs of Torah finials, two Torah shields, and a Torah crown in the Jewish Museum of Paris (mahJ); a Torah case and pair of Torah finials in the Jewish Museum New York (inv. no. S 1456a, b, c; Grafman no. 378); and a Sefirat HaOmer plaque in the Skirball Museum, Los Angeles.
Maurice Mayer (b. 1801) was active in Paris from 1839 (his personal maker’s mark was registered in 1846). He signed his works with the title "Maurice Mayer Orfèvre de l'Empereur Paris" (Silversmith to the Emperor [Napoleon III]). His work was exhibited and awarded at various 19th-century Parisian expositions, and his Judaica objects are kept in prominent public and private collections, including: three pairs of Torah finials, two Torah shields, and a Torah crown in the Jewish Museum of Paris (mahJ); a Torah case and pair of Torah finials in the Jewish Museum New York (inv. no. S 1456a, b, c; Grafman no. 378); and a Sefirat HaOmer plaque in the Skirball Museum, Los Angeles.
For other work by Mayer, see: Sotheby’s, December 22, 2015, Lot 117; June 5, 2019, Lot 70; and April 29, 2013, Lot 248 (the Steinhardt Collection).
Height: 45 cm. Max. width: 9 cm. Overall good condition. Minor bends and fractures. Slight corrosion. Sections soldered together.
Category
Torah Ornaments
Catalogue Value
Auction 104 Part 1 Rare and Important Items
Oct 21, 2025
Opening: $4,000
Estimate: $6,000 - $8,000
Sold for: $6,875
Including buyer's premium
Pair of Torah finials. North Africa, probably Tunisia, [19th century].
Silver, cast, pierced, repoussé, and engraved (unmarked).
Large, massive Torah finials, resembling Italian Torah finials in both their style and dimensions. In form of three-tiered hexagonal towers, tapering upward. The uppermost tiers are capped with domes adorned with a vegetal pattern and surmounted by ornate hexagonal ornaments. Six fancy columns (pilasters) extend from each of the six corners of each tier, and the three tiers are bordered above and below by sets of railings. The joint connecting the body and shaft of each finial consists of a large, flattened spherical knob adorned with vegetal patterns and six cartouches engraved with dedicatory inscriptions (Hebrew):
"Committed is the notable one / mentioned below that he not / have permission to sell or offer as collateral, neither he / nor his descendants for all time / but he may bring them to whichever // synagogue [misspelled Hebrew] he wishes, / and if he goes / to the Land of Israel he may take them / with him, and no one / shall have the power / to claim he had consecrated them to Heaven".
Finials supported by unusually tall cylindrical shafts (more recent) with broad, dome-shaped bases.
Height: 57 cm. Maximal width: 12.5 cm. Fair condition. Chains and bells mostly missing (a single bell and remnants of a chain remain in place). Ornament missing from top of one corner column, and strip of metal missing from the uppermost hexagonal ornament of one finial. Shafts not original, but existing shafts apparently put in place sometime in the 19th century, or early 20th century at the latest. Somewhat loose connections and screw joints.
Category
Torah Ornaments
Catalogue Value
Auction 104 Part 1 Rare and Important Items
Oct 21, 2025
Opening: $1,000
Estimate: $3,000 - $5,000
Sold for: $2,750
Including buyer's premium
Torah crown. [Eastern Europe, presumably Poland, first half of the 19th century].
Silver, cut and repoussé (unmarked); silver, cast; parcel-gilt; glass stones.
The crown comprises six arms, surmounted by a smaller crown also with six arms, topped with a spherical finial and a bird. Between the arms of the lower crown are long, curved leaf-shaped ornaments, each terminating in a bird holding a bell in its beak.
The crown is set on a tall base adorned with four cast figures: a leopard, an eagle, a deer, and a lion, alongside inscriptions reading: "Bold as a leopard", "Light as an eagle", "Swift as a deer" and "Mighty as a lion" (Avot 5:20). Thirteen colored glass stones are set in the base, and ten additional stones are set into the arms. One of the arms differs slightly in design and is not adorned with stones.
Height: 21.5 cm. Diameter of base: 12.5 cm. Max. width: 19 cm. Overall good condition. Three bells missing. Slight bending and warping. Several holes. Six to eight stones missing. One arm not original. The animal appliqués may be later additions.
Category
Torah Ornaments
Catalogue Value
Auction 104 Part 1 Rare and Important Items
Oct 21, 2025
Opening: $5,000
Estimate: $10,000 - $15,000
Sold for: $7,500
Including buyer's premium
Pair of Torah crowns. Vienna, 1861, 1868, both created by V. Mayer (possibly Vincenz Mayer), silversmith, and bearing dedicatory inscriptions to the Hebrew Congregation of Craiova, Romania.
Two Torah crowns, both crafted from cut silver, with repoussé and engraved decoration. The crowns are of closely related design, each composed of a circular or oval base surmounted by a single arch, and both adorned with vegetal motifs. Minor variations, however, can be discerned in the ornamental patterns of the two.
1. Marked with Viennese fineness mark dated 1861, and with maker’s mark, "Mayer".
Dedicatory inscription (Hebrew) engraved inside a cartouche, near the base:
"Donation of distinguished members of the Holy Congregation of Craiova; made in the time of the Gabaim of the time, R. Moshe de Mayo and R. Yehudah Mordechai Ashkenazi, 5620 [1860]".
"Donation of distinguished members of the Holy Congregation of Craiova; made in the time of the Gabaim of the time, R. Moshe de Mayo and R. Yehudah Mordechai Ashkenazi, 5620 [1860]".
Height: 29 cm. Diameter at base: 19-19.5 cm. Overall good condition. Minor warping and distortion. Four small perforations, and fractures and old soldering repairs to arch. Two small rings soldered onto interior, near base.
2. Marked with Austro-Hungarian fineness mark in use from 1866, and with maker’s mark, "V. Mayer".
Dedicatory inscription (Hebrew) engraved on one of the decorative elements at the upper edge:
"Donation of the wealthy Yitzchak son of Yosef, to the Holy Congregation of Craiova… 5628 [1868]".
"Donation of the wealthy Yitzchak son of Yosef, to the Holy Congregation of Craiova… 5628 [1868]".
Height: 28 cm. Diameter at base: 18-20 cm. Overall good condition. Minor warping and distortion. Slight fractures to arch and base.
Category
Torah Ornaments
Catalogue Value
Auction 104 Part 1 Rare and Important Items
Oct 21, 2025
Opening: $5,000
Estimate: $8,000 - $12,000
Unsold
Large Torah crown. Austria-Hungary, possibly Bratislava (Pressburg, today capital of Slovakia) or Vienna, [late 19th or early 20th century].
Silver, cut, repoussé, punched, and stamped (marked with Austro-Hungarian fineness marks in use from 1886 to 1922; arches marked with maker’s mark SB; base also marked "Bernauer S."); gilt.
Unusually large Torah crown, with eight arches and a fancy dome on top, all bearing vegetal patterns. Broad oval-shaped base, equipped at center with a pair of tall, broad dedicated cylinders to be fitted over the wooden handles of the Torah scroll. On the perimeter surface of the base are a dozen delicate flower-shaped ornaments with rectangular frames at their centers, which had previously housed glass beads (now missing).
Height: 35 cm. Maximal width: 39X34 cm. Overall good condition. Minor warping. Glass beads missing. Bells missing from each of the 8 arches. Small flower-shaped ornament missing from base. Apparently also missing ornament at top or bell at center.
Category
Torah Ornaments
Catalogue Value
Auction 104 Part 1 Rare and Important Items
Oct 21, 2025
Opening: $2,000
Estimate: $6,000 - $8,000
Sold for: $9,375
Including buyer's premium
Large Torah crown by silversmith Moshe son of Sa'id. Algeria, likely Constantine. Inscription dated 1886.
Silver, cast and engraved (unmarked).
A large, heavy crown intended for a Torah case. Composed of 13 articulated silver segments, joined with pins and hinges. Twelve of the segments are identically designed, while one – divided into two halves and serving as the clasp – is slightly different.
Each segment is adorned with cast appliques: pointed arches with trefoil motifs, framing a flowerpot with blooming flowers; surmounted by a balustrade-like ornament and a grille-like element with symmetrical vegetal design. The clasp segment features engraved inscriptions in place of the flowerpot motif, and two flower-shaped ornaments affixed at the base of the arch.
A long dedicatory inscription, engraved and partly repoussé, spans the full width of the crown:
"… This crown for a Torah scroll / was made by the gizbbarim / of the synagogue of / R. Nathan Toubiani… Nissim Nakash… Moshe son of Sa'id… Shlomo Doukhan… Mordechai Malchi… Chaim Tzabach and his sons Yitzchak Tzabach / and Avraham Hasson and David son of Sa'id…".
The left clasp is engraved with the maker's signature: "Crafted by the artisan R. Moshe son of Sa'id… 1886, Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5646". The segments are numbered with punched dots on the reverse.
For a similar Torah crown by Moshe son of Sa'id, see: Center for Jewish Art (CJA), item 40919 (Gross Family Collection, Tel Aviv). For another similar example, see: Sotheby’s, December 19, 2007, Lot 96.
Height: 19.5 cm. Length: 110 cm. Good condition. One cast ornament missing. Additional ornaments apparently missing from the tops of some hinges (one surviving). Some connecting rods not original.
Category
Torah Ornaments
Catalogue Value
Pages
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
