The Sabbath Rest

Image credit: Ben Uri Collection

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As Hirszenberg gathers together three generations of one family to celebrate the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbat), he contrasts their traditional way of life with the new industrialisation symbolised by the cityscape seen through the window beyond. The star-shaped lamp, designed to burn for 24 hours (because it is forbidden to do work of any sort, including the lighting of lamps during Shabbat) indicates the family’s piety; the muted palette illustrates their poverty.

Hirszenberg was born in Lodz, Poland and studied in Munich, Crakow and Paris. He exhibited regularly in Paris before moving to Jerusalem in 1907, where he taught at the newly established Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts until his death in 1908. Hirszenberg was well known for his monumental paintings depicting the plight of the poverty-stricken Jews of his native Poland, where frequent anti-Semitic violence (or pogroms), caused many of them to flee Eastern Europe for the West.

Ben Uri Gallery & Museum

London

Title

The Sabbath Rest

Date

1894

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

H 149.5 x W 206.5 cm

Accession number

1987-148

Acquisition method

purchased with the assistance of Moshe Oved, 1923

Work type

Painting

Inscription description

S. Hirszenberg, 1894

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Ben Uri Gallery & Museum

108a Boundary Road, St John's Wood, London, Greater London NW8 0RH England

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