The backplate is cast and featuring a deer in the center surrounded by open scrollwork. The side panels fitted with two servant lights, fronted by a row of eight oil fonts. Scholars theorize that these Polish Chanukah lamps that bear two servant lights (as opposed to the singular servant light normally found on a Hanukkah Lamp), served a purpose, having been used on one of the days that Hanukkah fell on the Sabbath, as Sabbath candlesticks. For another example, see page 298 of the book “Five Centuries of Hanukkah Lamps from The Jewish Museum: A Catalogue Raisonné”. This lamp was made by the technique known as "sand casting". This process begins with a wooden mold that was carved out to create negative space, which in turn is used to make the inverse form or shape to be used for the casting of metal. The mold is pressed into Fine sand mixed with clay, then removed, and molten brass poured into the impression. When a mold wears out, a casting from that mold is often used as the mold for the next generation. Those later lamps will have less detail than their older counterparts, and will be one to two percent smaller in size. In the book "Masterpieces of Jewish Art: Bronze", author Alexander Kantsedikas states: "22 percent of the Jewish males in Galicia were engaged in different types of crafts in 1820-1827, that is, the period to which the majority of the surviving bronze and copper artifacts date in Western Ukraine. Half a century later the figure grew to 26.2 percent, while the corresponding figure among non-Jews was 2.2 percent".
Every item in Menorah Galleries is accompanied by a lifetime “Certificate of Authenticity” and additional documentation and information regarding the individual artifact and its culture.
