(Authors: Ute ben Yosef, Gwynne Schrire, Vol. 72, No. 3, Chanukah 2017)
In 2013, a Cape Town auctioneer told Darryl Kaimowitz that a painting of rabbis discussing the Talmud was to be auctioned. On a brass plaque attached to the frame was inscribed, “Presented to the Arthur’s Road Hebrew Congregation in memory of the late Israel Kellner, 1978”. How and when it came to end up at the auction house, no one knew, nor had anyone thought to comment on its absence. For R50, Mr Kaimowitz bought the painting and returned it to the Arthur’s Road shul.
What was the story behind the presentation, and what was the story behind the painting itself ?
Roydon Sacks asked Art historian Dr Ute Ben Yosef and Gwynne Robins to investigate.
Arthur’s Road congregation had started its life in August 1897 as the Beth Hamedrash Yeshurin at 23 Buitenkant Street, District Six, becoming the Chabad Shul around 1914. According to S.A. Rochlin, few congregants were originally Chassidim by birth or by conviction – indeed, nearly all were strongly Misnagid in outlook. However, “nearly all of them were masters of Tephillah and Niginot of the traditional hue…A daily feature wholeheartedly sponsored by this group was the story of the Talmud.”1
As the congregation of poor Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Eastern Europe settled down and started to move up the mountain, it became difficult to get a minyan, so in August 1945, the shul relocated to Virginia Avenue, Vredehoek. As the next generation in turn moved to the Sea Point beach front, the congregational leaders under chairman Israel Kellner and vice chairman Isidore (Socher) Zeldin decided to purchase Erf 951 in Sea Point East (known as Verandah Lodge) from the Dutch Reformed Church on 28 March 1953. Membership fees were kept low at three guineas – eighteen months later the congregation was still struggling to pay off the bond, with R5 500 owing.2
Philip Goldman recalled, “While having Sunday tea with the family, in stormed Israel Kellner, a man of intense vitality who never knew the meaning of the word ‘no’. He asked us to join him over the road to daven minchah. We stood among the bricks and cement and had the first service of the Hebrew Congregation Chabad”.
Goldman was invited by Kellner to become a member, and he soon became the congregation’s secretary and treasurer. Then the inevitable dissension set in (for which the picture here discussed is a suitable metaphor), which “led to squabbles and disunity in the shul as most Sea Point [Jews] could not accept Chasidism. As a result, membership dropped and financial problems arose, forcing the shul to take out a first and second bond with the S.A. Mutual”. Kellner as a result approached Philip’s father, Dick Goldman, to help the shul over its financial and managerial problems. “My father took up the challenge by retiring from the family business, which enabled him to concentrate fully on the shul’s affairs. Chassidism was not a success in Sea Point, resulting in us changing to an Ashkenazi service. Thus the Beit Midrash Morasha at Arthur’s Road was born.”3
Fig. 1: Arguing Rabbis, Oleograph. 57x78cm, Sigd: below right: H N Weiss in possession of Beth Midrash Morasha at Arthurs Road. Photo: Roydon Sacks
Israel Kellner played an enormous role in the synagogue. His grand-daughter Merle Finkel describes him as “a most determined, energetic man who saw his dreams become a reality”. Another grand-daughter, Bubbles Segal, remembers the painting hanging in his lounge over the couch opposite cabinets housing crystal items. “So typical of Yidden learning”, it represented something he loved to do.4 In 1978, Israel’s son, Eli, donated the picture in his father’s memory to the Beit Midrash Morasha congregation.
The painting shows a group of five Chassidic sages depicted in the style of genre pictures of the 19th Century Hungarian-Jewish artist Isidor Kaufman (1853-1921), who lived and worked in Vienna. A sixth man is davvening in the background. The five men are arguing vigorously whilst taking snuff or pointing on the page in the Talmud. It is a lively, humorous scene. We see on the left an ark covered with a curtain on which the words Keter Torah is embroidered (thus the scene takes place in a shul), a lit candle on the background wall and a ‘Judenstern’ chandelier.5
The signature does not refer to any known artist of the period reflecting the style of the painting. This was another mystery. However, surfing the internet, copies of several virtually identical paintings appeared – some with the characters reversed as in a negative, some with different backdrops, some with different artist’s signatures. One blog showed the painting and asked if anyone knew who the artist was. A respondent replied that her grandfather bought it and two other paintings from a Holocaust survivor who had painted the reproduction. Another copy is signed with a name that looks like “S Leyon”.
One look-alike – see picture below signed Hebert – was sold on EBay, which described it as “beautiful oil on canvas painting [that] was around 200 years old” and ‘painted’ by French painter and academic Antoine Auguste Ernest Hėbert (1817-1908 – which certainly would not make it 200 years old).6
Fig. 2. Arguing Rabbis. Oleograph. (Undated) Ebay Sgd. Auguste Ernest Hébert.
Christie’s in London sold it in 2007 for €9755.46 as the work of B. Werner, a German painter.7 B Werner signed many identical pictures sold under the following titles: ‘A difference of opinion’, ‘L’argumentation’, ‘Rabbis in a debate’, ‘Rabbiner bei Torah-Diskussion’ and ‘Angeregte Gespräche, 190 0’. There seems to have been a consistent demand and a ready market. ‘Werner’s’ picture takes two forms – the picture similar to the one in the Arthur’s Road shul, and another of the same persons a little later in their argument, in angrier poses and with more books on the ledge above them.
Since B Werner does not appear in any extensive 19th Century compendium of German artists8 no other information about him seems to be available, leading one to the conclusion that like H N Weiss, he was also a Victorian copy artist earning a living painting reproductions.
In the 19th Century, cheap copies of paintings became available. The Victorian Age was the age of printed pictorials that took shape by means of the various printing and engraving processes These were known as oleographs, also called chromolithographs, that came into wide commercial use in the 1860s until more efficient techniques were developed at the end of the century. They were printed in oil colours to imitate the appearance of an oil painting and, when heavily varnished, the effect was almost identical to that of an oil painting. The copies were usually signed by the copy artists. Van Gogh wrote that artists “deplored the spiritless and uninspired ‘oliographs’ of their academical contemporaries.”9
Fig. 3 Signed B Werner Wikigallery
One reproduction appears (above), in garish colours on the cover of A Treasury of Chassidic Tales on the Torah (ArtScroll Judaica classics) by Shelomoh Yosef Zevin, but the artist is neither mentioned nor acknowledged.10
Fig 4 Cover of A Treasury of Chassidic Tales on the Torah (ArtScroll Judaica classics)
A firm that made many chromolithographs was that of Raphael Tuck, who invented the Christmas card and popularised post cards. Born in 1821 in Koschmin, Poznan, he attended yeshivah, becoming an accomplished Talmudic scholar and continuing to study Talmud for the rest of his life. Although his business was in London, most of his colour work was contracted in Germany. Because so few chromolithographs have survived, their value among collectors has greatly increased. So, did his firm reproduce what was obviously a picture that had great appeal for Jewish immigrants to the New World with a certain degree of nostalgia and sentimental attachment to the life they left behind?
Fig. 5 L’argumentation, Signed B. Werner, Artnet
In an article posted by “Doctor Science”, the anonymous writer states that he regards this picture “as the most accurate depiction I’ve seen of how ‘two Jews, three opinions’ plays out even in the most serious and scholarly of discussions”. He sources the origin of the picture to the one below, unfortunately without giving the source.11
This picture looks as though it could have been the original which the printers produced, either in colours or in a way enabling the artist to fill in the colour. With dates given by the owners ranging from 200 years-old to made by a Holocaust survivor, are there any clues in the painting to help? The dress and fittings in the Morasha painting seem to date the picture to the 18th or 19th Century. The ‘Judenstern’ candelabra, the star-pointed light that is illustrated in the doorway above the man praying in some of the versions, was used from the 15th to 19th Century in Holland and Germany. There is also a candle, and the man on the left is busy taking snuff. Snuff was popular from the 17th Century, bun feet from the 17thto 19th Century and barley sugar twisted legs from the 17-19th Century – although the legs in these pictures are unusually elaborate. The men are dressed in the kaftans common in that period in Eastern Europe, with slip on shoes. The table in Werner’s first painting appears to be younger, more solidly 19th Century although the Judenstern, now on the right, is still there.
Fig. 6, Debating Rabbis (n.d.)
In 2015, Morasha member Evan Robins visited the Durban United Hebrew Congregation. He felt at home immediately because there at the brochah, looking down at him from the wall was the picture of the arguing rabbis familiar to him from Morasha. Like the painting donated by Eli Kellner, this had been donated to the shul by one of their members. The two were identical except that the signature of the artist was different. The signature on their painting looks something like ‘?nf lar Schleicher’. Morasha’s artist is H N Weiss. But this led onto a discovery that may have produced the solution.
Fig 7, Lot 192: Carl Schleicher, Austrian Fl .1859-187119th Century Paintings by Sotheby’s, 12 November, 2003
A Google search finds a 19th Century Austrian artist called Carl Schleicher (1825, Lemberg/ Lvov – 1903, Padua, Italy), who worked in Vienna and Munich painting ‘biedermeier’ genre scenes with a lot of interior details. His signature is completely different to the Schleicher signature on the Durban painting, which indicates that the artist deliberately changed the first name to avoid being accused of fraud (which is more than the person did who signed Hébert’s name to a painting so different in style to that of the French artist).
Unlike unknown artists H N Weiss, S Leyon, B Werner and ?nflar Schleicher who have produced works identical to the oeuvre of the Austrian Carl Schleicher, the latter is known to have existed.
This painting must have proved to be a best seller for the wealthy Jews in Austria and Germany because Schleicher repeated the tried and tested formula a number of times. Identical people appear in identical positions and poses with similar furniture before a similar wall. Sometimes the wall has a lamp, sometimes an upright framed manuscript, sometimes a slanted framed manuscript, sometimes a shelf containing the framed manuscript and books. Occasionally, one finds an ark, a cupboard or a praying figure in the dim far left. At other times, the figure is on the far right. Sometimes the stool with the tallis is on the right, sometimes on the left. Was the original by Schleicher? As he has painted the same arched wall in other pictures of his – with chess players or gamblers or drinkers sitting before it and has also painted two Catholic priests in discussion (these could not have sold as well as they have not been repeated as often), it seems most likely that he was the originator.
Fig 12, Carl Schleicher
So does it mean that we have traced the Ur-original to the artist who first painted this scene? Was it a product of the genius of the genre artist Carl Schleicher? But wait – what about the identical paintings credited to the 19th Century artist B Werner? Or to the French artist Antoine Auguste Ernest Hébert, or signed by ?nflar Schleicher or S Leyon? Unless proved otherwise, the likeliest explanation is that in an age lacking copyright legislation they all copied Schleicher.
Fig 13 Painting “Rabbis Discussing Talmud” www.icollector.com 640 × 454Online Collectibles auction held 17.9.2009 New Jersey, USA
Various auction houses have sold these almost identical originals at respectable prices ranging from $5000 and €1000 under the names of different artists. It is surprising that they have not queried this. The continued popularity of this painting has produced another example of man’s desire to make money. One company12offers to paint an oil copy of B Werner’s A difference of opinion on canvas ready for delivery “within 21 – 28 days”.13 The purchaser could choose the size. Although ‘Werner’ is not listed among their twenty most popular artists, ‘his’ picture is one of those advertised in its on-line catalogue.14
When Eli Kellner donated his father’s picture nearly forty years ago these ‘Chinese factories’ making ready-made old masters to order did not exist. Be that as it may, the Beth Midrash Morasha Arthur’s Road Synagogue can still pride itself on having an originally coloured 19th Century picture of a subject that has remained as popular today as it was when the congregation first began in 1897.
Dr Ute Ben Yosef has a BA in Librarianship and a PhD in History of Art. She studied at the University of Pretoria (where she later was senior lecturer in Art History) and the Free University of Berlin. After working as an Art critic for newspapers in Switzerland, she became head Librarian of the Jacob Gitlin Library in Cape Town, whilst lecturing and publishing on contemporary artists. Gwynne Schrire, a veteran contributor to and editorial board member of Jewish Affairs, is Deputy Director of the Cape Council, SA Jewish Board of Deputies. She has written, co-written and edited numerous books on SA Jewish and Cape Town history.
NOTES
- SA Rochlin, Jubilee of Cape Town’s Oldest “Minyan”, SA Jewish Times, 19.12.1947
- Elia Stamm, ‘Friendly Intimacy of Chasidic Shul in Cape Town’, (un-named undated newspaper cutting on Arthurs Road website)
- Philip Goldman A Brief History of our Shul; History | Beit Midrash Morasha @ Arthurs Road www.morasha.co.za/about-us/history/
- E-mail from Bubbles Segal, 15.11.2014
- This photo and the following one is taken by Roydon Sacks
- Antique Oil Painting, ‘Rabbis Arguing Talmud’ (Hebert, Ernest?) (French, 1817-) Judaica Jewish in Art, Art from Dealers & Resellers, Paintings | eBay. www.ebay.com.au/itm/371079151219 oil on Canvas, ‘Rabbis In Heated Discussion’, (Hebert …www.ebay.co.uk › … › Other Contemporary Paintings)
- B. Werner | Art auction results, prices and artworks estimates www.arcadja.com › Arcadja Auctions › Artists Database Werner B, ‘Rabbis in a Debate’, Auction House: Christie’s /Sep 13, 2006. Estimate: € 1,478.09 – € 2,217.13. Price: € 9,755.46
- For example the Thieme-Becker and Vollmer Künstlerlexikon (1907-1950)
- “For while they, as new technicians seeking light and complementaries and values, deplored the spiritless and uninspired ‘oliographs’ of their academical contemporaries, they completely overlooked the deeper truth; their artistic instincts were not strong enough to make them see that the spiritless and uninspired subject picture was the most poignant proof that could be found of the fact that mankind no longer possessed, to any passionate or intense degree, that which made the subject picture possible–that is to say, a profound faith in something greater and more vital either than the artists themselves or their art, something which gave not only art but also life a meaning and a purpose”, Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters of a Post-Impressionist Being the Familiar Correspondence of Vincent Van Gogh… Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company 1913 Chiswick Project Gutenberg www.gutenberg.org/files/40393/40393-8.txt Released as an EBook August 2, 2012
- Available in the Gitlin Library
- Obsidian Wings: Doctor Science, Redeeming God in Canaan, obsidianwings.blogs.com, 29July, 2012 http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515c2369e2017743c215a9970d 445 × 276
- “Have your own handmade oil painting reproduction from these popular subjects”… 1st Art Gallery, 1st Art Gallery Inc, 244 5th Avenue, Suite D-230, New York, N.Y with branches in London and Panama.The sizes range from 20 × 16 inches for $212.79 to 150 × 100 inches for $3780.51
- B. Werner, A Difference Of Opinion – 1st-Art-Gallery.comwww.1st-art-gallery.com/B.-Werner/A-Difference-Of-Opinion.html
- These are Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh, Monet, Bouguereau, Gustav Klimt, Rembrandt, Cézanne, El Greco, Toulouse Lautrec, Delacroix, Renoir, Botero, Turner, Michelangelo, Raphael, Goya, John WilliamWaterhouse, Velazquez, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent
Carl Schleicher, ‘Jewish scene’, oil on panel
