243 - Jakob Alt,

Jakob Alt, German 1789-1872- Portrait of a Rabbi; oil on board, signed 'Jacob Alt' (lower left), 26 x 21 cm. Provenance: with Saks Limited, Montreal, where acquired by the present owner. Private Collection, UK. Note: Jakob Alt was born in Frankfurt and travelled extensively throughout Italy and Austria, where he would pass away at 83. He is primarily known as a landscape and cityscape painter, and his portraits rarely appear on the market. The present lot might not be a portrait of a specific person with an identifiable likeness, but rather a representation of a 'type', harking back to some of the earliest and most well-known examples of this iconographic tradition which can be found in the oeuvre of artists such as Rembrandt. Three examples are Portrait of an old man (The Old Rabbi) held in the Uffizi in Florence [inv. 1890 no. 8435], A Rabbi with a cap from the Royal Collection [inv. RCIN 405519], and Portrait of an Old Man (Possibly a Rabbi) from The Leiden Collection [inv. RR-109]. In the present painting the figure can be safely identified with a rabbi, as his shoulders are covered by a tallit—a fringed prayer shawl—, and he wears a shtreimel—a fur and velvet hat. The open book at the lower edge of the painting alludes to the religious scriptures of Judaism, their study, and prayer. A comparable example, catalogued as 'A Russian Rabbi', sold at Fischer, Lucerne, on 18 June 2014, lot 1503 (£557 hammer).