CHAGALL’S HOMAGEPainted between 1968-78, Juif à la Thora is a magnificent homage to the artist’s Jewish heritage and upbringing. The painting depicts a young Jewish man, wearing Tefillin and wrapped in a long Tallit, holding a Torah in a loving embrace as he floats above the village below. To the right, a fully rendered open Ark reveals additional Torah scrolls and prayer books, lit from within by a golden glow. The figure exudes power and strength – a potent symbol of survival and renewal in spite of all adversity. The intensely-Jewish subject is derived from a drawing which Chagall executed in the aftermath of the Second World War in 1947 and later used as the frontispiece of his friend Joseph Opatoshu’s book, The Last Revolt, The Story of Rabbi Akiba, 1948. The painting remained in the collection of the artist’s family for almost 30 years following his passing in 1985.

PROPERTY FROM THE BEN URI GALLERY AND MUSEUM, LONDONFounded in 1915, Ben Uri is Britain’s oldest Jewish cultural organization. Originally an ‘Arts Society’ designed to provide support for Yiddish-speaking, Jewish-émigré artists and craftsmen working outside the cultural mainstream, Ben Uri’s founders nursed the ambition of building a National Museum of Jewish Art by assembling a permanent collection of work by Jewish artists – which, given the time and circumstances, was a grand and visionary objective. Today it comprises over 400 artists from 35 countries of birth, and, uniquely, among national collections, two-thirds of the artists are émigrés, and over a quarter are women. The collection is widely recognized as a unique and distinctive visual and academic survey of Jewish artistic and social life during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries in Britain. The proceeds of the sale will benefit the museum's strategic development plans for its second millennium of public service, including wider engagement both nationally and internationally.

The group of 12 works on offer this December includes three paintings by Moshe Castel, led by Father and Son (est. $40/60,000, left). Painted in 1928, the narrative of this work expresses the specific relationship the figures have to one another and to the neighborhood they are strolling through. The theme of figures walking through their home environments is carried on throughout Castel’s career into the 1930’s, and visual elements like the red belt became a painterly signature. It has been suggested that the work could even be a self- portrait of the artist as a child, walking hand-in-hand with his own father, Rabbi Yehuda Castel.

SEMINAL WORKS BY REUVEN RUBINThe auction features 10 works by renowned Romanian-born Israeli painter Reuven Rubin. This group includes a superb work from the late 1920’s, Boy with Goldfish (est. $150/250,000, right) and a 1930’s Self-Portrait from the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum collection (est. $200/300,000, below). Boy with Goldfish is a charming 1929 portrait depicting a young boy from the artist’s Tel Aviv neighborhood, delicately grasping a goldfish. The subject of a fisherman and his catch recurs in Rubin’s works throughout his career, expressing the artist’s view of man in harmony with nature.Rubin’s vivid Self-Portrait from 1937 shows the artist at work on an unseen canvas, with a vase of delicately rendered flowers by his side. The work reflects a turning point in the artist’s career, as he veered away from his signature naïve style of the 1920s, full of symbolism and storytelling with a flattened composition, to a more painterly style with an exaggerated emphasis on color, light and texture.

A MYSTERIOUS PORTRAIT BY MORDECAI ARDONMordecai Ardon’s Parable of 1 x 1 is a highly important self-portrait of the artist as a boy that exemplifies the exact moment in which the artist abandoned the naturalistic approach of his early self-portraits and developed a language of symbols to describe thoughts and feelings (est. $180/250,000, right). In Parable of 1 x 1, Ardon, the student, sits at a table studying a geometric equation, as a mouse runs across a path leading into a trap. The artist confronts the universal yearning for answers or solutions to life’s deepest mysteries, symbolized here by a simple geometric equation. In December 2014, Sotheby’s set a record for the artist and a record price at auction for any Israeli artist with Ardon’s 1969 canvas The Awakening, which sold for $821,000.

CONTEMPORARY ART FROM RENOWNED AND EMERGING ARTISTSContemporary art, photography and video is well represented in year’s annual auction, with works by Ori Gersht, Michal Rovner and Zoya Cherkassky on offer. Of particular importance are two photographs from Adi Nes’ Biblical Stories series in which the artist has re-imagined Biblical heroes as contemporary figures. Israeli-born artist Ronen Sharabani will be making his auction debut with his Real Estate Candies video work, executed in 2016 (est. $10/15,000).

IMPORTANT JUDAICA FROM THE COLLECTION OF SHLOMO MOUSSAIEFFSotheby’s is honored to offer Important Judaica from the collection of the late Shlomo Moussaieff this December. A renowned jeweler, Mr. Moussaieff was equally known as a passionate connoisseur and collector of Judaica and Antiquities.The breadth of Mr. Moussaieff’s interest in the material and spiritual culture of the Jews is evidenced throughout his collection of important books and manuscripts. The auction features a remarkable collection of ketubbot, including an early and exceedingly rare marriage contract from the port city of Livorno (est. $50/70,000, left). The highly decorated marriage contract, with its border illustrating the twelve tribes of Israel and the equal number of zodiac signs, is extant in only 15 copies and can be found on only a very few of the lavishly decorated ketubbot produced for wealthy Jewish families in the Veneto region. Further highlights also include an incredibly diverse selection of 35 Kabbalistic manuscripts (the largest collection to ever come to auction), autographed by some of the most important Rabbis, including preeminent kabbalist Rabbi Hayyim Vital (1542-1620) and Rabbi Israel of Medzhybizh (1700-1760).

The metalwork section of the Moussaieff collection features a significant variety of forms of menorahs and Hanukah lamps, some of exceptional size, such as a 72-inch Monumental Polish brass Synagogue Hannukah Lamp circa 1890 (est. $30/50,000, left). There is also a rare group of Middle Eastern Torah Tiks – one of the largest ever to come to auction – and a selection of German silver and silver-gilt Kiddush cups, many appropriate inscriptions.The collection and sale is led by Simeon Solomon’s 1871 painting, Carrying the Scrolls of the Law (est. $150/250,000, right) Depicting a young man deep in a moment of religious sanctity, this celebrated paining by the artist stands at the pinnacle of the history of Jewish art of the 19th century. A version of this work in watercolor was chosen as the cover image of the Jewish Museum’s landmark exhibition, The Emergence of Jewish Artists in Nineteenth– Century Europe.

AMERICAN JUDAICAOutside of the Moussaieff collection, the auction offers a strong selection of important American Judaica, led by the first Jewish Prayer book printed in the United States (est. $180/240,000, left) published in New York, 1761. This pioneering American edition contains the evening liturgy for the High Holy Days and was the first English translation of the Jewish liturgy issued for a Jewish audience. The present work is exceedingly scarce, as only three other complete copies are known to exist – all of which are held by institutional libraries. The sale also includes an original ink and watercolor drawing from 1827 documenting the construction of B’nai Jeshurun, the second synagogue founded in New York and the third-oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in the United States (estimate $4/6,000).

EUROPEAN SILVERThe silver portion of the sale includes a fine Bezalel Silver Large Hanukah Lamp, circa 1910 (est. $20-30,000), and two pairs of Torah Finials from the Amsterdam Jewish Community. A fine silver-gilt Torah Crown from Venice, early 18th century, displays the strength of Italian chasing in the Baroque period (est. $180/220,000). Hanging Lamps are also featured, including an Important Silver Figural Sabbath lamp from Northern Italy circa 1775, mounted with eight figures (estimate $100/150,000) and a Rare German silver hanging Sabbath Lamp from Augsburg, Germany in the late 18th century (est. $250/350,000, right).

IMPORTANT BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTSThe printed works in this year's sale are led by one of the most highly coveted Hebrew Incunabula, a Mishneh Torah by Moses Maimonides printed in Soncino, 1490 (est. $150/200,000). Also featured is an exceptionally fine copy of theSecond Rabbinic Bible, Venice: Daniel Bomberg, 1524–1525 (est. $50/70,000), and the first edition of the Hasidic masterworkLikkutei Moharan (Gleanings of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav), Ostraha: 1808. An outstanding group of 18th century illustrated manuscripts also appear in the sale, including a 1771 Haggadah written by Netanel ben Aaron (est. $75/150,000) and an exceptional group of  Esther scrolls, including a Magnificent Esther Scroll Written and Illustrated by Aryeh Leib ben Daniel of Goray, 1737 (est. $70/10,000) and a Richly Decorated Esther Scroll from Baghdad, circa 1850 (est. $20/30,000).