Von Geldern Haggadah

“Every now and then she would glance at the [Haggadah] in front of her, the beautiful parchment book bound in gold and velvet, an old heirloom with wine stains from her grandfather's time, containing so many bold and colorful images depicting all kinds of biblical stories, which she had already loved to look at as a little girl on Passover evening.” – This is how Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) describes the venerable Haggadah in his unfinished prose novel Der Rabbi von Bacherach (The Rabbi of Bacherach), which is read aloud during Seder at the beginning of the novel. He probably had in mind the precious illuminated Haggadah of his great-grandfather Lazarus von Geldern (1695–1769), known as the Van Geldern Haggadah. It was created in 1723 by a gifted calligrapher and illuminator and probably accompanied several Seder rituals in the life of the young Heinrich. As a court factor, Lazarus was one of the Jews whose wealth financed the great flourishing of Jewish book illumination in 18th-century Central Europe. The Van Geldern Haggadah is undoubtedly an artistic highlight of this heyday.