600-year-old Hebrew prayer book sells for $6.4 million at auction

The High Holidays mahzor, which was created in 1415 in Vienna, Austria, is the only of the top-selling Hebrew manuscripts to have been restituted, the auction house said.

By JNS

Sotheby’s sold a 15th-century Hebrew prayer book, the Rothschild Vienna Mahzor, for $6.4 million on Thursday in what it said was “one of the strongest results ever achieved for an illuminated Hebrew manuscript at auction.”

The book, which the auction house called “supremely rare” and a “masterpiece of medieval Jewish book art,” sold to an online bidder, Sotheby’s said.

It added that the book embodies “faith, sumptuous illumination, and profound historical resonance in a single monumental volume.”

“It is extraordinarily moving to witness a manuscript of this magnitude continue its journey with such strength,” stated Sharon Liberman Mintz, international senior Judaica specialist at Sotheby’s.

The mahzor is “not only a masterpiece of medieval illumination but also a document of faith, survival, and memory that has endured for more than six centuries,” Liberman Mintz stated.

“Seeing it resonate deeply with collectors today—and begin its next chapter after restitution—feels profoundly meaningful for everyone who has cared for its story.”

The High Holidays mahzor, which was created in 1415 in Vienna, Austria, is the only of the top-selling Hebrew manuscripts to have been restituted, the auction house said.

“Written in an elegant Hebrew script, the mahzor preserves the liturgy for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,” Sotheby’s said. It added that the volume is “remarkably well-preserved and distinguished by an extraordinary provenance.”

“The Rothschild Vienna Mahzor is only the second monumental illuminated Ashkenazi mahzor to appear on the market in more than a century and is one of just three such manuscripts known to remain in private hands,” it said.

In the 19th century, the Rothschild family owned the book, including Salomon Mayer von Rothschild, who acquired it in 1842 for his son Anselm Salomon von Rothschild, per the auction house.

The book was passed along through subsequent generations of the family, “becoming part of the family’s extensive collection of exquisite art and objects,” according to Sotheby’s.

“Everything changed, however, with the Nazi Party’s rise to power.”

In 1938, the Nazis seized the Vienna home of Alphonse von Rothschild and his wife, Clarice, who were then in England. The Nazis took the family’s art and library, which subsequently went to museums or went up for sale.

“A small portion of the library, including the mahzor, was sent directly to the Austrian National Library, where it went unrecognized as Nazi-looted property for decades,” the auction house said.

“As a result, the mahzor bore no markings of confiscation and was not subject to restitution immediately after World War II.”

Sotheby’s said that the mahzor was shown publicly in 2021 when the library lent it for an exhibit “celebrating the legacy of the Viennese branch of the Rothschild family,” and only recently it was “restituted to the descendants of Alphonse and Clarice Rothschild.”