Bronze plaque with a full length image of Fagin
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 4.750 inches (12.065 cm) | Width: 3.375 inches (8.573 cm) | Depth: 0.375 inches (0.953 cm)
Creator(s)
- Peter Ehrenthal (Compiler)
Biographical History
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.
Archival History
The plaque was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of 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.
Scope and Content
Cast bronze plaque of Fagin, a devil-like Jewish criminal from the novel, Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, 1837-39. Plaques of the same shape, size, and design were mass produced in England in 1910 in an inexpensive material known as Ivorex, plaster of Paris dipped in wax. The metal version may have been produced earlier, but the source is not known. Fagin's characterization is antisemitic and exploits many negative stereotypes. Referred to as The Jew, Fagin is villainous, greedy, and repulsive, with black nails, fanglike teeth, and he kidnaps small children to make them thieves. Dickens shared a common prejudice of the time, saying that if he had a character who was a fence, he had to be a Jew because "that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew." Many adaptations try to sidestep the complications of Fagin's ethnic identity, or make him more of a comic figure, but his Jewishness is central to his depiction. This ornament is one of the more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic artifacts and visual materials.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Heavy, oval, cast bronze plaque with a sunken bas relief of a Jewish man in an ankle-length open robe over his blouse and trousers standing in a room. He has thick, wavy hair, a long beard, thick eyebrows over beady eyes, and a big nose. His head is turned slightly to the left as he speaks and gestures with both hands, palms out, right hand at his side and left hand bent at the elbow. To his left, is a woven chair with clothing hanging on a line above it. To his right is a table with a pocket watch and a fireplace mantel with a bottle. The name Fagin is etched at the bottom. The plaque has a flat, raised rim with 2 small projections with holes for hanging. The back is smooth with mold indentations.
back, red marker : 80
Subjects
- Stereotypes (Social psychology) in art.
- Fagin (Fictitious character)
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Antisemitism in art--Great Britain.
- Jews in art.
Genre
- Object
- Decorative Arts