Europe’s Middle Ages produced many fine treasures. Crowns, swords, and jewels are all indicative of a time long past. However, people often do not consider written or artistic treasures such as books, manuscripts, and tapestries. Sotheby’s has brought one of those great treasures to light, the Shem Tov Bible.
This over 700-year-old manuscript also has an illustrious history of ownership. Its previous owners, such as David Solomon Sassoon and Jacqui Safra, lend their prestige to the works' illustrious past. Jacqui Safra, in particular, is a member of the Syrian Safra family, whose legacy dates back to the Ottoman Empire and is one of the world's preeminent banking families. Safra himself is a billionaire Swiss banker.
All of this history and provenance has contributed to its hefty estimated price of between US$5-7 million. The last time the lot was sold at auction was in 1984, when it went for US$825,000, a record-breaking amount at the time. Interestingly, Safra is responsible for holding the modern version of that 1984 record, selling the most expensive manuscript in auction history, another Hebrew Bible, which went for US$38.1 million in 2023.
Created in the Kingdom of Castile, in what is now modern Spain, it represents one of the most accurate versions of the Hebrew Bible ever copied down. Beyond the importance of the text to the history and religion of Judaism, it is a remarkably well-preserved manuscript from the year 1312 that is full of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic artistic influence.
Lot 1⏐Rabbi Shem Tov ben Abraham Ibn Gaon (1283 - 1330)⏐The Shem Tov Bible, Soria (Castile)⏐Tan leather binding
Circa 1312
Dimensions: 34.2 x 25.3 cm
Pages: 768
Provenance:
- Ibn Gaon (1283-1330)
- Nasi Sar Shalom ben Phinehas (14th Century)
- Stayed in the Middle East for several centuries due to its usage in a legal opinion by Rabbi David Ben Solomon Ibn Abi Zimra (1479 - 1573) a Spanish Jew who worked in The Levant and Egypt. It may have also been used in Syria as scrolls found in Damascus reference the work
- Moved to North Africa during the 17th century and was held by a family who kept it as an important heirloom in Tunis, then under Ottoman rule
- Held by the Serour family in Tripoli during Ottoman rule
- 1909, purchased By David Solomon Sassoon (1880-1942) in Tripoli for £85
- Sold by Sotheby’s New York in December 1984 for US$825,000
- Exhibited in Amsterdam (1990), Berlin (1992), New York (1992), and Dallas (1992)
- Acquired by private Swiss collector Jacqui Safra in 1994
Estimate: US$5,000,000 - 7,000,000
Auction House: Sotheby’s New York
Sale: The Shem Tove Bible: A Masterpiece From the Golden Age of Spain
Date: 10 September 2024
Rabbi Shem Tov ben Abraham Ben Gaon, better known as Ibn Gaon, was born in 1283 in Soria, in the Kingdom of Castille. Located in north-central Spain, the city was a strategic border town with a large Jewish population.
In his youth, Ibn Gaon traveled to Barcelona to study with the great rabbis of the city and the nearby town of Tudela, where he wrote on Jewish laws. It was during this flurry of intellectual activity that Ibn Gaon began writing his most challenging and ambitious project, on this version of the Hebrew Bible, which would be finished in 1312 in Ibn Gaon’s hometown of Soria. While it was unknown exactly how long it took to finish, it was most likely a multi-year project due to the different hues of ink used in the book.
It is unclear where the manuscript was finalized, but Ibn Gaon would travel to the Levant with the work, moving there from Iberia in 1315. Ibn Gaon passed away in 1330, but the work stayed in the region, with it being cited in legal rulings both in Egypt and Syria. At some point, it would be moved to North Africa and become a family heirloom in Tunis. It is this subsequent journey and provenance that grants so much of the Shem Tov Bible its prestige, aside from its academic and cultural importance.
Academics in the late 1800s and early 1900s eventually identified the work as belonging to the Serour family of Tripoli. Previous attempts by English collectors to purchase the work failed, until David Solomon Sassoon (1880-1942), a major collector of Hebrew manuscripts and descendent of the famous Baghdadi Jewish banking family, purchased the work from the family for £85 and entered his collection in late 1909. Sasson is regarded as one of the great bibliophiles, whose collection had over 500 texts.
From there, the work stayed in Sassoon's collection until after his death, when it was sold by Sotheby’s New York in December 1984 for what was then a record-breaking US$825,000. It went on exhibits around the world before being sold to another prominent Jewish manuscript collector, Jacqui Safra, for an unknown amount. Jacqui is a descendant of the prominent Safra banking family of Syria and is a billionaire investment banker operating out of Geneva.
A photograph of David Solomon Sassoon the prominent collector of Hebrew texts, including this lot and the Codex Sassoon
The Safra banking family originated in Syria but would not open their first bank there. Instead, their financial legacy started in Beirut. Moving there in 1914, the family's patriarch Jacob Safra opened his first bank there in 1920. He took advantage of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 to specifically do business with the influx of Syrian Sephardic Jews coming into the city. Jacob Safra leveraged the trust within the community to become a notable banker, creditor, and commodities trader.
Jacqui Safra is Jacob's grandson via his eldest son. Jacqui was born in Switzerland in 1947. Jacqui Safra studied at Wharton Business School before working at the Republic National Bank of New York, part of the Safra family's sprawling multinational group before the bank was taken over by HSBC in 1999.
Safra has been involved in a variety of different investments, including 14 movies, including eight by Woody Allen. He is also the owner and president of Encylopædia Britannica, which he bought in 1996. More recently, he has been noted for his investments in Ireland, where he owns two islands and co-owns a luxury hotel.
Being a high-caliber collector like Sassoon, Safra also bought and sold another Sassoon collection item, in the past, a 1,100-year-old version of the Hebrew Bible, the Codex Sassoon. Named after its most famed owner, the 792-page work was also sold by Sotheby's New York. It went for a record-breaking price for any manuscript sold at auction in May 2023.
Jacqui Safra (b.1947) one of the Shem Tov Bible's owners and another collector of Jewish historical manuscripts
References to the Codex Hilleli on page 279
From an academic sense what makes this Hebrew Bible so historically important is the fact it draws much information from the Codex Hilleli, as seen through its numerous citations to the work. The Codex Hilleli is considered one of the most accurate versions of the Hebrew Bible and was subsequently quoted and used by copyists to create their manuscripts.
With the loss of the original Codex Hilleli, written around 600 AD, the Shem Tov Bible’s value greatly rises as it is one of the last bridges to such an important work. The Shem Tov Bible also draws from other older sources that offer Babalyonian scholarship on Jewish laws and practices.
There were also other technical features of the Shem Tov Bible, including the use of numeration, a somewhat unique thing that Ibn Goan had a penchant for; the rabbi’s precise usage of numbering paragraphs and pages allows scholars to easily read through, a rare feature at the time.
The decorative design used to light the end of The Prophets section
Beyond just the technical and historical aspects of this work, which make it incredibly valuable, one of the great aspects of the Shem Tov Bible is its artistic components. A common aspect in the manuscript is the use of gilded outlines and grames placed around pages to mark the end of a book.
For example, the case shown above comes at the end of the The Prophets section, which is the 2nd major part of the Hebrew Bible. At the top of the page rests a gold pediment with two storks on either side. The columns reach down the page to two sleeping lions, with the whole outline decorated with flowers.
Another interesting artistic element is the Shem Tov Bible’s inspiration from Islamic art. Since the Iberian Peninsula had been ruled by Muslim Moors, this cultural influence, even after the Christian reconquest, is reflected in the manuscript. On page 760, this is visible through the trio of golden horseshoe arches on the top of the page, a common sight in Moorish architecture in Spain.
The three horseshoe arches on page 760 these arches were commonly found in Islamic-Moorish architecture in Spain
Further examples of the elaborate decorations are found in the manuscript. It is believed that Ibn Gaon may have personally done these to match his organization of the Hebrew Bible