The Festival of Purim (La fête de Purim); Interior of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam

Louis Fabritius Dubourg|Balthasar Bernaerts

1737 · Etching and engraving · Drawings and Prints

One of the symbols of the wealthy Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the magnificent Portuguese Synagogue, a building that still stands today and looks much the way it does in this print. Here Dubourg illustrated the community gathered there for Purim, a Jewish holiday celebrated to commemorate the deliverance of the Jews from the massacre plotted by Haman. In the foreground, people of varying classes talk with each other while in the background many men have draped prayer shawls over their fashionable caps as they partiicpate in the service.

Artist

Louis Fabritius Dubourg|Balthasar Bernaerts

Date

1737

Medium

Etching and engraving

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Arthur H. Elkind, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary, 2020