Starting on 21 March, the Jewish Historical Museum (JHM) will present an exhibition featuring the Esther scrolls of the seventeenth-century engraver Salom Italia. During the Dutch Golden Age in Amsterdam, Italia developed a new style of decoration for the parchment scrolls that tell the biblical story of Esther. Italia’s Esther scrolls became collectors’ items, coveted by art experts and museums around the world. Now six of these world-class masterpieces have been brought together for the first time in Amsterdam.

Salom Italia, Esterrol, ca. 1641. Coll. Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam

The exhibition includes Esther scrolls by Salom Italia from all over the world, accompanied by a unique selection of seventeenth-century prints and books that reveal Italia’s sources of inspiration. Masterworks such as Pieter Lastman’s Triumph of Mordecai and Rembrandt etchings reveal how intimately the story of Esther was connected to the Dutch Jewish experience in Salom Italia's day.

Salom Italia (c. 1619–after 1655) was barely 22 years old in 1641, when he came to Amsterdam from Italy. The Dutch Golden Age was then at its height. For the growing number of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who were settling in the Dutch Republic, Italia created a new kind of Esther scroll that reflected their bond with their new homeland. The illustrations both show the successful integration of these Jewish immigrants into Dutch culture and allude to the identity of the Dutch people, who had just won their freedom from Spanish rule. Italia used elements such as triumphal arches, pictures of the main characters, narrative scenes, and vignettes with Dutch landscapes as decorations, thus developing an entirely new form of the Esther story.

Salom Italia, Esterrol, ca. 1641, Parchment : engraved manuscript. Coll. The Jewish Museum, New York. Schenking Joodse Gemeente Danzig, D76

The biblical Book of Esther describes how the Jews of the Persian Empire are saved from destruction during the reign of King Ahasuerus. Haman, the royal vizier, wants to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom. Two Jews, Mordecai and his cousin Queen Esther, try to stop him. Esther’s Jewish identity remains a secret until the story reaches its climax. During the annual Purim celebration, a handwritten version of the story of Esther on a parchment scroll is read aloud in the synagogue. The members of the congregation read along on their own scrolls, which are often lavishly decorated.

The exhibition The Triumph of Identity: Salom Italia’s Esther Scrolls and the Dutch Golden Age is organized by guest curators Emily D. Bilski and Sharon Assaf, who are also the authors of the accompanying English-language catalogue. It will run until 3 July 2011.


Joods Historisch Museum
Nieuwe Amstelstraat 1
1011 PL Amsterdam
www.jhm.nl