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 feather is leading the Jews, who are carrying dough wrapped in cloths over their shoulders (Ex 12:34-35). On the left an Egyptian city lying on their way can be seen (Baal Zephon? cf. Ex 14:2), its gates closed while from above the inhabitants watch the Jews passing by and knocking on the gates, while a dog wearing a crimson neckband is standing in the foreground. The figure of the dog, which seems to have been treated very well in recent times, is an allusion to the passage: "But against the children of Israel no dog shall stick out its tongue" (Ex 11:7). 18 8 The exact meaning of the expression is not quite clear, it seems to mean something like "to stick the tongue out, to threat someone." Our illustration apparently follows the traditional interpretation going back to Rashi quoted above: the dog's tongue seems to be missing. 1 8' In the background the crowned figure of Pharaoh emerges, pursuing the refugees (fig. 15)."" Young and old are amazed at the marvellous figures that populate the folios of the manuscript and in this family circle the father is all too willing to yield to their urging and to tell them the stories of the Biblical figures, while the imagination of the young is captivated more by the owls (figs 1617) - the latter serves as a decoration for the panel of the son who does not know how to ask. In the former illustration we can see a figure emerging from the decoration in the margin aiming with his arrow at an owl. A very similar scene appears in the 14th century Catalonian Haggadah formerly in the possession of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres (London), now one of the treasures of the John Rylands University Library (Manchester; Hebrew MS 6): a fantastic hybrid is aiming with his arrow at an owl from below.'"' In the case of a hunter aiming with his arrow at an owl we are in all probability dealing with a simple decoration in the margin, although there have been efforts to interpret it as the extension of the motif of the rabbit hunt so common in Ashkenazic Haggadahs, which owes its popularity to a Jewish German mnemotechnic pun there. Namely, the initials of the Hebrew names of the ceremonial elements of the twofold benediction at the beginning of the feast 18 7 KOHN Zoltán, Magyarázó jegyzetek a haggádához. | Explanatory remarks to the 1 laggadah). In: OMZSA haggáda [Haggadah of the National Hungarian Jewish Rescue Action / Országos Magyar Zsidó Segítő Akció]. Budapest 1942. 73 [117, I18|. MUNKÁCSI Emő, A peszach ünnep története [The history of Pesach festival]. In: OMZSA haggáda 1942. XXX11, XLVIII. MUNKÁCSI C. 1938. 14. 18 8 KAUFMANN, Bilderzyklen. In: KAUFMANN 1908-1915. III. 233. ""GESENIUS 1959. 262a. KOEHLER - BAUMGARTNER 1967-1995. 342. Das zweite Buch Mose. Exodus. 1961. 68 [ad loc.]. On associations with dogs in Jewish and Christian art in general see MELLINKOFF 1999. 38-39. RÉAU 1955-1959. I. 128. ""MÜLLER - VON SCHLOSSER, Bilderhaggaden 1898. 189, 197 [ad p. 74]. NARKISS - SEDRAJNA 1988. Kaufmann Haggadah. Card No. 44. '" MÜLLER - VON SCHLOSSER, Bilderhaggaden 1898. 102, Plate 111. [Tafel 111.]. ROTH 1960, ill. opp. page 137 (fol. 29v), 140-141. NARKISS 1982. II. 90 [fig. 267], 165
