100 Objects

Embroidered Ark curtain 1835

Whilst in the collections storerooms last week this Ark curtain and pelmet caught my eye. Objects like this one need to be kept in controlled conditions to ensure they are cared for properly. Light, in particular, is a cause of concern for fabrics as it bleaches away the colour and leaves us with only a clue to what the beauty would have been. Organic material is always fighting against time, much as we all are, and the museum has to do all it can to keep the years at bay for these collections. Therefore, objects like this one, which was donated in 1971, can be displayed for only short periods of time across their lives and are then kept safe in the storerooms for researchers to access.

Safeguarding the colour of the silk of this Ark curtain has been a triumph as it still holds the warmth of saffron yellow within the material that radiates a soft glow against the bright white of the archival tissue paper that now protects it. Reading the Hebrew embroidered upon the silk we gain quite a lot of information straight away.

There is an image of a crown supported by lions on either side with the Hebrew ‘Crown of the Law’ stitched around it. Others who have studied the curtain over the years have noted that they believe these two tailed lions may derive from the arms of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Unfortunately, we cannot know this for sure as the name of the synagogue it once belonged to has not accompanied the object itself.

Thanks, however to the dedication embroidered upon the curtain, there are other clues to its life before the museum. We know that it was created and dedicated in 1835 as a gift from the “noble brothers, Leizer and his wife Rikele and Mendel and his wife Gittel and Sender and Lemle”. The ark curtain was “consecrated on the holy Sabbath, Parashath Balak, in the year 5595” and then acquired by “Isaac son of Naphtali Shternberger and his wife Sarahle in the year 5635.”

Standing at 186cm tall and 122cm wide with the deep colour of the silk and the embroidery in silver thread and coiled silver wire, with silver plaques and some raised motifs it makes an impressive impact but there are a few clues to a hidden previous life for this object too. When we look closely at the other motifs we see ears of corn along the edges and across the pelmet.

Similar designs have been seen on objects not found in the synagogue, but in homes. In fact, the prevailing opinion is that it was made from a curtain that formerly hung at a window or around a bed.

We will probably never know which home it came from and what their connection was to the Jewish community who then took their skills to reform it as this beautiful curtain. But we do know the home it started in, the refashioning by the three brothers in 1835, then the acquisition by the new couple in 1875 and then its journey to the museum. All that love and skill that went into its creation has now transferred to the museum to protect and care for its history.

Frances Jeens is the interim director of the Jewish Museum London, in Camden, which has now reopened to the public. Book your visit at jewishmuseum.org.uk