Torah crown. Eastern Europe (Galicia), [18th century].
Silver, repoussé, cut and pierced (unmarked); gilt; color glass beads; niello.
Large, elaborate Torah crown, made of high-quality metalwork, in typical Eastern European style (Galicia – Ukraine and Poland), set with 37 colorful glass beads and 24 plaques with niello decorations. Tall, round base, with tall ornament and six long, curved braces topped by a smaller crown with ten braces.
The crown is decorated with several different techniques: The center of the base is fashioned with large repoussé vegetal patterns incorporating three pairs of griffons supporting large gilt cartouches stylized as a sort of lattice. The crown is likewise fashioned with a repeating repoussé vegetal pattern. Gilt ornaments in rich, interlocking vegetal patterns, incorporating stylized plaques with niello decorations in vegetal patterns, are affixed near the bottom edge, near the upper edge and on the long braces. The bottom of the crown is set with 27 colorful glass beads, in several different sizes, and 10 more smaller beads are set in the top crown. The top crown decorations match the decorations of the bottom parts, but the base also incorporates minute putti (cherubs). The various decorations are affixed with bent pins and silver nails.
Height: 41 cm. Diameter: 20 cm. Weight: 2260 g. Overall good condition. Warping and minor fractures, with some pieces missing. Some old soldering repairs and old repairs with silver plaques (to interior). Defects to some glass beads. Piercings in some places, apparently evidencing additional lost decorations. Ornament lacking (bird or knob) from top crown. Slight corrosion.
For a Torah crown with a similar structure from the Galicia region, see: Thora und Krone, Kultgeräte der jüdischen Diaspora in der Ukraine (Wien 1933), Kat. no. 7; for other crowns with niello decorations, see: Kantsedikas, Masterpieces of Jewish Art (3), Silver (Moscow, c. 1992), nos. 25-27.
