Brass Hanukkah Lamp, Poland, 18th century. Brass, cast, an openwork, rectangular base is screwed onto the sides, raised on four legs, and the back wall. A cuboidal tray, internally divided into eight cube-shaped burners, closed with a lid, and screwed onto the base, the openwork sides have branches with candle sockets. The openwork back wall depicts a central Menorah supported by two deer on their hind legs. The composition is flanked by two twisted columns with very schematic, hardly visible figurines of birds.
Scholars theorize that these Polish Chanukah lamps that bear two servant lights (as opposed to the singular servant light normally found on a Chanukah lamp), served a purpose, having been used on one of the days that Chanukah fell on the Sabbath, as Sabbath candlesticks. 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".
| Dimensions: |
H 11.03 in. x W 11.82 in. x D 6.3 in.
H 28 cm x W 30 cm x D 16 cm
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| Material: |
Brass |
| Origin: |
Poland |
| Period: |
18th Century |
| Hallmark: |
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