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Bronze dish with bas relief of 3 Jewish men on a bench

Object | Accession Number: 2016.184.100

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    Bronze dish with bas relief of 3 Jewish men on a bench

    Overview

    Brief Narrative
    Bronze dish with a bas-relief of three Jewish men talking on a bench, captioned, “Karlsbader Idyll,” made in Bohemia during the 19th century. The relief represents a stereotypical scene in spa towns such as Carlsbad (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic), or Marienbad (now Mariánské Lázně, Czech Republic). These are towns located on thermal springs, and have accommodations that use those springs for their medicinal and rejuvenating properties. Many European spa towns can trace their histories back to ancient Roman settlements. During the 18th and 19th centuries, European spa towns became increasingly popular as centers for health and social destinations for the affluent, the nobility, and European royalty. During this time, a seemingly large numbers of Jewish guests also frequented the spa towns. Carlsbad previously had a prohibition against Jewish residency that was repealed in 1793. After the repeal, another fifty years of litigation attempted to keep Jews from moving into the town. However, in approximately 1848, Jews began to settle in Carlsbad even though antisemitic sentiment was still present. Derogatory postcards, called Judenspottkarten (Jew-mocking cards), and other souvenirs were produced and sold. A commonly depicted scene on these items includes a portrayal of three, usually older Jewish men, sitting on a bench sometimes with their umbrellas. The scene is possibly a modernized version of an older theme of three Jewish peddlers. Some versions replace the men with pigs who display stereotypical Jewish physical features, which mocked both Jewish spa culture and Judaism. This souvenir dish is one of the more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic artifacts and visual materials.
    Date
    creation:  1800-1899
    Geography
    creation: Bohemia (Czech Republic)
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
    Markings
    front, lower edge, engraved : Karlsbader Idylle
    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

    Language
    German
    Classification
    Decorative Arts
    Category
    Metalwork
    Genre/Form
    Decorations.
    Physical Description
    Heavy, oval cast bronze dish with a shallow well and curved sides. There is a bas relief of 3 old men in Orthodox Jewish dress seated in conversation on a slatted bench. They wear top hats and long coats and have large noses, long beards, and sidelocks. The man in the center sits facing forward, hands resting on his closed umbrella. The man on the left is in right profile, with his arms on his crossed legs, chin in his hand; the man on the right is in left profile, arms folded in his lap. Along each side are a bush and tall tree whose leafy branches overhang the bench. There is an embossed German phrase, Karlsbader Idylle, along the bottom. The dish has a smooth rim. The back is smooth, with a concave center with a flattened edge rim for resting on a table.
    Dimensions
    overall: Height: 5.250 inches (13.335 cm) | Width: 6.500 inches (16.51 cm) | Depth: 0.875 inches (2.223 cm)
    Materials
    overall : bronze

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Geographic Name
    Bohemia (Czech Republic)

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The souvenir dish 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:
    2022-07-28 18:12:37
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn537346

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