Portraits of Jews.
A Virtual Gallery Of Colonial-Era American Jews
The Dedication Copy
[Judaica]. London, Hannah R. Portraits of Jews by Gilbert Stuart and Other Early American Artists. With an appreciation by Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach. And an introduction by Lawrence Park. New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1927.
4to.; partially unopened; frontispiece portrait of Abraham Touro; 57 other full-page black and white plates; grey paper-covered boards, green cloth spine with label.
First edition; 1000 hand-numbered copies (this is copy #831). This is the dedication copy, signed by London beneath the printed dedication, "To my parents." A handsome and informative collection of portraits of early Jewish Americans. The author is identified only as the former Hannah R. London, now Mrs. Benjamin Mordecai Seigel. In his introductory note the rare book dealer A.S.W. Rosenbach writes:
The work of Mrs. Hannah London Siegel on the portraits of Jews in America from Colonial times is not only a most valuable contribution to the history of the Jews in the United States, but also supplies a considerable addition to our knowledge of early American artists. Mrs. Siegel is the first to treat this interesting subject in a comprehensive way....Mrs. Siegel has visited the descendants of Jewish Colonial families and what she has discovered is a veritable treasure trove...The reproductions form a veritable Jewish Colonial Gallery, and we can now behold the very lineaments of the early worthies who founded the first synagogues and charitable organizations; who fought in the early wars; who were active in the first explorations of the West; and who did so much in a patriotic sense for the country of their adoption...
(#4390)
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