Looted by the Nazis: Rare 15th-Century Machzor Set for Auction After Return to Rothschild Family
A rare illustrated machzor from the early 15th century, plundered by the Nazis from the Rothschild banking dynasty during the Holocaust, is slated for auction next year and is expected to fetch at least $5 million.
The machzor, created in 1415 by Moshe ben Menachem, a Jewish scribe and artist, was written for the Yamim Nora’im. It features Hebrew text adorned with bird illustrations, silver and gold leaf, and decorative elements designed to make the pages shimmer. Eventually, the manuscript made its way to the international Rothschild family, where it remained until it was seized by the Nazis in the early years of World War II.
After sitting for decades on a library shelf, the manuscript was recently returned to the Rothschild heirs by the Austrian government and will be sold by Sotheby’s, with experts estimating a sale price between $5 million and $7 million.
“Illuminated Hebrew manuscripts are extraordinarily rare,” said Sharon Liberman Mintz, a Judaica expert at Sotheby’s. “They were costly to produce, so only a small number were created.” Mintz explained that Jewish communities throughout history were often destroyed or expelled, leaving their books behind. “Between destruction, upheaval, and migration, the fact that this survived 600 years is nothing short of miraculous,” she added, noting that crafting such a manuscript on parchment would have taken more than a year.
Dr. Katrin Kogman-Appel, a medieval manuscript scholar and professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Münster who examined the book for Sotheby’s, said the survival of any such volume from that era is exceptional. If the machzor is sold to a private collector, she said, it is critical that the buyer “make it accessible and visible at least to the scholarly community, and hopefully to the wider public.”
The New York Times reported that little is known about the manuscript’s first 400 years. It will be displayed at Sotheby’s in New York from December 11–16 ahead of its February 5 auction. In 1842, it was purchased for 151 gold coins by Salomon Mayer von Rothschild, a prominent Jewish banker in Austria and founder of the Vienna branch of the Rothschild Bank, as a gift for his son, Anselm Mayer von Rothschild. The machzor remained in family ownership for generations and eventually entered the library of French financier Mayer Alphonse James Rothschild.
During Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938, Baron Louis de Rothschild was detained at the airport while attempting to flee the country and was later imprisoned. The Nazis held him hostage for a year, forcing him to sign over his property and art collection. At the same time, Alphonse Rothschild and his wife Clarice were in London, and in their absence, the Gestapo emptied their Vienna palace—including the treasured machzor.
According to the New York Times, many of the Rothschilds’ finest artworks were shipped to Germany, while others were incorporated into Austrian museums. The machzor and additional volumes were transferred to the Austrian National Library.
After World War II, the Rothschild family managed to recover portions of their looted property. Austrian restitution laws eventually changed, leading the government in 1999 to return hundreds of artworks, furnishings, and jewels to heirs of families whose assets had been confiscated.
But the Rothschild manuscripts in the National Library went unnoticed and remained locked away for decades. In 2021, the Jewish Museum Vienna mounted an exhibition dedicated to the Rothschilds, which drew attention to the forgotten volumes.
“It sparked everyone’s curiosity about how the manuscript ended up in the library,” Mintz said. “The Rothschild family didn’t even know it was there. It sat on a shelf for 60 years and was never cataloged.” Following the exhibition, the Austrian government investigated the manuscript’s provenance and voluntarily agreed in 2023 to return it to the Rothschild heirs.
{Matzav.com}