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Document Details : Title: Dirk van Santen and the Keur Bible Subtitle: New Insights into Jacob Judah (Arye) Leon Templo's Model Temple Author(s): OFFENBERG, Adri Journal: Studia Rosenthaliana Volume: 37 Date: 2004 Pages: 401-422 DOI: 10.2143/SR.37.0.583411 Abstract : In 1972 the British art historian Helen Rosenau published an article about Jacob Judah Leon in which she pointed out that architectural models were quite common in the seventeenth century, but that these were invariably of existing buildings. The idea of the Portuguese rabbi and teacher Jacob Judah Leon (1602-1675), known as Templo, to make a model of an ancient, no longer extant edifice, was entirely new.1 Its success was so remarkable that he was able to establish a private museum in Amsterdam, containing yet more models, and to take these on tour and write a whole series of books on the subject, which were translated into numerous languages. He presented his models at the Dutch and British courts, and appeared at fairs in The Hague and Haarlem. In addition to his model Temple and Tabernacle, visitors to the house at the sign of Solomon’s Temple on Korte Houtstraat, in Amsterdam’s Jewish district of Vlooienburg (on the site of today’s Stopera), could also view models of numerous ceremonial objects made on a far larger scale, such as a seven-lamped copper menorah, a shewbread table, altars, priestly garments and even a plan of the ranks of the Israelites in the wilderness. |
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