Antisemitic pottery figure of a Jewish woman with exaggerated features
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 9.375 inches (23.813 cm) | Width: 3.625 inches (9.208 cm) | Depth: 5.250 inches (13.335 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 ceramic figurine 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
Detailed, satirical, terracotta pottery figure of a stereotypical older Jewish woman, with exaggerated, nearly grotesque facial features, dressed in a fur coat and muff. It is a companion piece to 2016.184.534.1, a figure of the woman’s heavyset, self-satisfied husband. The figures convey the impression that although their wealth and expensive clothes place them in the bourgeois class, they are still uncultured peasants. This ceramic figurine is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic visual materials.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Painted terracotta figurine of a Jewish woman with her hands in a muff hand warmer. The woman has a long hooked nose, black hair, and is visibly missing teeth. She wears a tan, floor-length skirt that flows behind her, a buttoned brown coat with red buttons, and a cream-colored shawl tied around her neck that extends midway down her back. She also has a headband wrapped around the top of her head. She stands on a rectangular-shaped, dark gray base with a rectangular piece of paper adhered to the bottom and a number stamped on it in black ink.
bottom, stamped on paper, black ink : 41 bottom, stamped on paper, red ink : 483/2 front, stamped, black ink : 65
Subjects
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons--18th century.
- Jewish folk art--Germany.
- Antisemitism in art.
- Jews in art.
- Jews--Germany--18th century--Sculpture.
- Germany.
- Antisemitism--Germany--18th century--Art.
Genre
- Decorative Arts
- Figurines.
- Object