Rowlandson caricature of three elderly Jewish men eating pork
Creator(s)
- Peter Ehrenthal (Compiler)
- Thomas Rowlandson (Artist)
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 print 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
Hand colored proof of an etching by Thomas Rowlandson depicting three old Jewish men eagerly preparing to dine on suckling pig. Since Jewish dietary laws forbid the eating of pork, comic works often showed them doing so greedily and with great enthusiasm. Dukes Place was a Jewish neighborhood in London. Rowlandson, one of the most brilliant cartoonists and engravers of late 18th-early 19th century England, issued over sixty works featuring Jews, often derogatory and antisemitic, as in this print. His humorous drawings of contemporary scenes of city, country, and political life were popular and had much in common with the picaresque novels of Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, which he illustrated. This print 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
Hand colored etching of three elderly Jewish men, in profile and three quarter view. Two are seated at a white cloth covered table facing each other, while the third man stands in the back preparing to carve a suckling pig on a platter. All have stereotypical Jewish features on the floor near his leg is: beards, bushy eyebrows, long pointed noses, and fleshy lips: 2 wear white powdered wigs. The bald man on the right wears a blue coat and stares at the pig with large eyes and open mouth, hands on the table clutching his large, upright fork and knife. On the floor near his left leg is a wine cooler with 6 bottles.
People
- Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827.
Subjects
- Jews--Great Britain--18th century--Pictorial works.
- Antisemitism in art--Great Britain--18th century.
- Stereotypes (Social psychology) in art.
- Jews in art.
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons--Great Britain--18th century.
Genre
- Art
- Object