Bidspirit auction | (RUTHERSTON, 1930). A New Critical

(RUTHERSTON, 1930). A New Critical Edition with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes, Literary, Historical, and Archeological, by Cecil Roth. Hebrew text and English translation.  Designed by Albert Rutherston. Fifteen full-page illustrations and numerous head and tailpieces, all stenciled in colors under the supervision of Harold Curwen. Hebrew fonts by Enschede. English font set in Baskerville. One of 100 copies on J. Barcham Green's hand-made paper, numbered 11 to 110. Original blue crushed morocco gilt by Henry T. Wood. Limitation page with presentation inscription from Cecil Roth. pp. 40, (2 blank), 209. Spine scuffed. With later slip-case. Sm. folio. Yaari 2149; not in Yudlov. London, for the Soncino Press, 1930. A Beautifully Designed Hagadah by Albert Daniel Rutherston. Sumptuously Produced at the Curwen Press. ”In issuing this new edition of the Haggadah, the publishers have aimed at giving to this time-honoured liturgy a setting of consummate beauty, a fitting testimony to the almost filial affection in which it is held by the Jewish people” (Publisher`s Note by J. Davidson). The Anglo-Jewish artist Albert Rutherston (1881-1953), younger brother of Willliam Rothenstein, studied at London’s Slade School of Fine Art. His social circle included such literary and artistic luminaries as Augustus John, William Orpen, Charles Conder, Walter Sickert and Wyndham Lewis. Rutherston taught at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts before he was appointed Ruskin Master of Drawing in Oxford (1929-49). In 1936 he was one of the founder members of the Pottery Group, along with Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson and Graham Sutherland. Unlike his contemporary Arthur Szyk, who of course designed an equally celebrated Hagadah on vellum, Rutherston and his art did not remain self-enclosed within the confines of the Jewish experience. Rutherston took his Jewish artistic talents to the broader world, and became closely associated with some of the greatest names of 20th-century English arts as an influential member of the highly select Bloomsbury Group. Rutherston was treated as an equal by these giants of English literature and the arts while still preserving his Jewish identity, as exemplified by this extravagantly designed, exceptional Passover Hagadah.