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Porcelain drinking cup shaped as the head of a sneering Jewish man

Object | Accession Number: 2016.184.29

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    Porcelain drinking cup shaped as the head of a sneering Jewish man

    Overview

    Brief Narrative
    Small, colorful ceramic drinking cup in the shape of a Jewish man with an unpleasant facial expression. The piece is similar in style and production period to character mugs, which were ceramic mugs modeled on representations of popular characters. The man has thick eyebrows, hooded eyes, and fleshy red lips with curly hair; all stereotypical physical features commonly attributed to Jewish men. Stereotypes of the Jewish body are a common antisemitic trope. Malformities such as flat feet and bowed legs were used as justification to exclude Jews from the military, which was then used to indicate a lack of patriotism and masculinity in those men. Other physical features such as short, arched foreheads, large, hooked noses, and fleshy lips were believed to be predominant features of Jewish men. In antisemitic images, these features were applied to humans as well as animals commonly considered vermin or pests to indicate Jewishness. The idea of the large Jewish nose originated from craniological studies by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) that claimed to identify a prominent nasal bone in Jewish people. Later scientific studies have proven that none of these features are more prominent in Jews than in any other population. However, these stereotypes were used by the Nazis to foment antisemitism, and many still permeate today. This drinking cup is one of the more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic artifacts and visual materials.
    Date
    creation:  approximately 1900
    Geography
    creation: England
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
    Contributor
    Compiler: Peter Ehrenthal
    Biography
    The Katz Ehrenthal Collection is a collection of more than 900 objects depicting Jews and antisemitic and anti-Jewish propaganda from the medieval to the modern era, in Europe, Russia, and the United States. The collection was amassed by Peter Ehrenthal, a Romanian Holocaust survivor, to document the pervasive history of anti-Jewish hatred in Western art, politics and popular culture. It includes crude folk art as well as pieces created by Europe's finest craftsmen, prints and periodical illustrations, posters, paintings, decorative art, and toys and everyday household items decorated with depictions of stereotypical Jewish figures.

    Physical Details

    Classification
    Household Utensils
    Category
    Drinking vessels
    Object Type
    Drinking cups (lcsh)
    Genre/Form
    Drinking vessels.
    Physical Description
    Small, colored, glazed, porcelain drinking cup shaped as the head of a Jewish man wearing a light blue cap. He has thick eyebrows, hooded blue eyes, and fleshy red lips with a curly brown hair and two-pointed goatee. His mouth is slightly open and cured downward in a sneer. His head is angled slightly backward, so his face looks up and the top of the cap angles back and down. The top has a circular opening that forms the mouth of the cup and reveals the hollow interior. A wide, brown shirt collar forms the flat base, which is unpainted. The color has worn away in several places, and the interior and underside of the base are discolored.
    Dimensions
    overall: Height: 3.000 inches (7.62 cm) | Width: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm) | Depth: 2.125 inches (5.398 cm)
    Materials
    overall : ceramic, glaze

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    No restrictions on access
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Geographic Name
    England.

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The drinking cup was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Special Collection
    Katz Ehrenthal Collection
    Record last modified:
    2024-02-21 07:11:15
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn537104

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