BRONZE MORTAR

Italian, dated 1690,
The flared cylindrical vessel with band of engraved foliate design, priestly hands, seven branched candelabrum and Hebrew inscription attesting to the date in front,”The L-rd is my shepherd I shall not want”, (Psalms 23:1), with rectangular handles, some damage to lip.
Mortars were created for Jewish physicians in the 16th and 17th centuries. Particularly during the Renaissance, medicine was a profession widely practiced by Italian Jews. Many of them studied at the renowned University of Padua. Relations between Christians and Jews reached a peak in 1450-1550 when the number of Jewish physicians was at its highest.
For comparison seee
Chaya Benjamin The Stieglitz Collection of Jewish Art, Jerusalem, 1987, p.416, for an earlier example

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