É. Apor (ed.): David Kaufmann Memorial Volume: Papers Presented at the David Kaufmann Memorial Conference, November 29, 1999, Budapest.
ORMOS, István: David Kaufmann and his Collection
DAVID KAUFMANN AND HIS COLLECTION Our manuscript is in rather bad condition. 20 0 The colours were of inferior quality right at the time of its birth and the manner of its execution also left a lot to be desired. As a consequence of heavy use, the colours and the gold simply fell off in many places. They were subsequently replaced with substances of even lower quality, and this procedure may have been repeated several times in certain parts. The margins of the manuscript are mutilated too: over the centuries the manuscript was rebound, perhaps several times, and on these occasions the margins were trimmed, as a consequence of which the decorations in the margins have been damaged in a number of places. In spite of all this, however, the manuscript is still a most precious relic of cultural history - in addition to its religious significance - and one of the most important gems of mediaeval art in general. The interested reader is referred to the splendid facsimile edition published recently, which is accompanied by a fascicle containing a valuable and informative essay by Gabrielle Sed-Rajna. 20 1 In addition to the "standard" version, which was also published in English, there appeared a luxury edition in a velvet presentation box accompanied by a considerably longer essay [39 pp.; 30 cm] with the detailed and exact description of the Biblical scenes among others. This is all the more important because owing to the loss of colours and the disturbed sequence of the pictures, even a skilled eye will sometimes fail to recognize the subject of a given picture. From among the illustrations on Biblical themes - although originally they did not form part of Haggadahs - we select two intriguing scenes from Moses' childhood when he was living at Pharaoh's court (f.9v; fig. 22). These scenes do not appear in the Bible itself but have been preserved in the rich treasury of Jewish legend. 20 2 For a detailed description of these scenes we turn to Gabrielle Sed-Rajna: 20 0 Our manuscript was restored under the guidance of Ildikó BEÖTHY-KOZOCSA in the Restoring Laboratory of the National Széchényi Library, Budapest, in 1987. T his meant the conservation of the given condition and the preservation of the manuscript rather than the replacement of parts already destroyed or lost. See pp. 105-112 above. 20 1 Kaufmann haggáda. A Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára Keleti Gyűjteményében őrzött, 14. századból származó héber kézirat. Budapest 1990. (Also with a Hebrew title-page at the other end.) The accompanying essay in a separate fascicle: Gabrielle SED-RAJNA, Kaufmann haggáda. Budapest 1990. 23 pp. [27 cm]. Incidentally, an earlier facsimile edition of this manuscript appeared in 1957: The Kaufmann Haggadah. Facsimile edition of MS 422 of the Kaufmann Collection in the Oriental Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. [Publications of the Oriental Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, I.] Budapest 1957 (plates). Alexander SCHEIBER, The Kaufmann Haggadah. Budapest 1957 (an informative essay in a separate fascicle.) It was also published in German in two editions in 1958 and 1959. 20 2 See SCHEIBF.R 1957. 17-18. Idem, Korona és parázs [Crown and embers]. In: Idem , Folklór és tárgytörténet [Studies in folklore], Budapest 1977-1984. III. 486-489. One of the main sources is Josephus FLAVIUS' Antiquitates ludaicae (II. IX, 7). There, however, the story 167
