Postcard of Fagin checking his treasure as Oliver watches
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 3.500 inches (8.89 cm) | Width: 5.500 inches (13.97 cm)
Creator(s)
- C. W. Faulkner Co. Ltd. (Manufacturer)
- 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 postcard 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
Unused postcard with an illustration of a scene from the novel, Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens in 1837-8. The image was created by Arthur Moreland for C.W. Faulkner Ltd. postcard printers. It depicts Fagin, the Jewish fence and miser, fondling his hidden treasures in the middle of night, when he thinks everyone is asleep. Oliver, the young boy snatched off the streets to join Fagin's gang of child criminals, watches from his bed. Fagin's characterization is antisemitic and exploits many negative Jewish stereotypes. Referred to as The Jew, Fagin is greedy, vicious, and kidnaps small children and trains them to be thieves. Dickens said 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." Some later adaptations of the novel try to sidestep Fagin's ethnic identity, or make him more of a comic figure, but his Jewishness is central to his depiction. The postcard 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
Chromolithograph postcard with color illustration of a skinny man kneeling at a trapdoor while a young boy laying in bed watches. The man, Fagin, wears a black skullcap, a long green cloak and trousers, and has large ears, long stringy brown hair and beard, and a long, pointed nose. He gazes at a necklace he holds strectched out before him in both hands. There are 2 large old disks at his left knee and a small brown, open lidded chest filled with baubles and jewelry sits on the floor to his right near the trapdoor. The artist name, Arthur Moreland, is printed in the bottom right corner of image. The back has preprinted information and a vertical center line separating the addressee and message section.
Subjects
- Antisemitism in art--Great Britain.
- Fagin (Fictitious character)
- Stereotypes (Social psychology) in art.
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Jews in art.
Genre
- Information Forms
- Object