Bidspirit auction | SZYK, ARTHUR. Le Statut de

SZYK, ARTHUR. Le Statut de Kalisz. Roits accordés aux Juifs par Boleslaus le Pieux, Grand-duc de Pologne en 1264, confirmés par Casimir III le Grand en 1334 et par Casimir IV le Jagellon en 1447 et 1467.      Limited edition, 1/50 (estimated extant). This copy numbered 155 (of 500 planned). Complete with all leaves. Includes the author's signature in the Certification's page, the ”Finis Libri” pages, and blanks in the beginning.      Exquisite full-page colored plates, magnificently composed by Szyk.     Highly detailed miniatures, border decorations, elaborate geometric patterns and expert calligraphy, all profusely embellished. On white paper colored to a light-brown to accomplish the “antique” affect, after which the images were printed with gold and silver added by hand.     Text of the Statute of Kalisz rendered into seven languages: Polish, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, and Yiddish.     Originally issued loose in portfolio, here each fully-margined leaf is attached to tabs and bound in blue buckram boards with red label printed in gilt pasted on the spine.      Some staining, corners touch bent. Binding lightly worn and stained. Gerald D. Lipton bookseller’s label on corner of opening pastedown. Format: 32 x 38.5 cm. Munich / Paris, F. Bruchman for Editions de la Table Ronde, 1932.     Richly Illustrated and displaying extraordinarily high production values, The Statute of Kalisz is perhaps Szyk’s most significant work. At once scribe and illuminator, Szyk sought to produce a manuscript that fully expressed “the glorification of an important text which elevates the human race” (J. Ansell).     This limited edition facsimile of the original manuscript was issued five years after its creation. It is estimated that only some fifty copies of the work survived the bombing of a warehouse in Warsaw during World War II.     ”If The Passover Haggadah is viewed as Szyk’s most famous work, surely his Statute of Kalisz is his single most important historic work. Reflecting the highest form of medieval manuscript illumination, this portfolio often has been called The Jewish Magna Carta. With the affirmation of civil and religious liberties and freedoms for Jews by the Grand Duke of Poland, Boleslav the Pious, in 1264, the Golden Age of Polish Jewry was initiated. In this work, Szyk illuminates the mutually beneficial relationship that flourished between Poles and Jews for hundreds of years.” See I. Ungar, Justice Illuminated: The Art of Arthur Szyk (1998) p. 15.     “J.P. Roland-Marcel called the illumination of the Statute of Kalisz Szyk’s masterpiece and claimed that it placed him on the same level as the best illuminators of the sixteenth century.” See J. Ansell, Arthur Szyk pp. 51-61.     See also J. P. Ansell, Art against Prejudice: Arthur Szyk's Statute of Kalisz, in: Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts (1989) pp. 46-6.