Getty Museum Acquires a Rare, 700-Year-Old Torah

LOS ANGELES — The Getty Museum has long been a destination for fans of illuminated manuscripts, with a trove including Christian prayer books from the Middle Ages. Now it also owns a rare Jewish illuminated manuscript from 1296, known as the Rothschild Pentateuch.

“This is the most spectacular medieval Hebrew manuscript that’s come to market in over a century — it’s unusual at this late stage in the development of collections to find something like this not already owned by a major museum,” said the Getty Museum’s director, Timothy Potts, who finalized the acquisition last month. “It’s the greatest example of its kind.”

It also fills in a gap in the Getty holdings, Potts said: “We have many Christian manuscripts and at least one Quran, and now we have a Hebrew manuscript as well.”

Like a traditional Torah, the manuscript consists of the Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Unlike a traditional Torah, it features extensive illustrations: three full-page paintings, 56 large illuminated text panels, 72 small illuminated text panels and hundreds of marginal images. The visuals feature fantastic beasts and animals as well as more abstract calligraphic flourishes, with a scene of Moses addressing the Israelites added later by the 15th-century scribe-artist Joel ben Simeon.

Potts said the text of the Rothschild Pentateuch suggests an English origin, while stylistic elements indicate it was probably made in Germany or France. “Since the Jews were expelled from England in 1290, and the date on this is 1296, the thinking is this was created by or for Jewish émigrés from England,” he said.

Backed by the $7.2 billion endowment of the Getty Trust, which allows it to compete with high-level private collectors across multiple acquisition fields, the Getty Museum acquired the manuscript from private sellers identified as “the heirs of a Frankfurt-based Jewish family.” The family had received the Torah in 1950 as part of an exchange for land with the city. Previously, the university library in Frankfurt, Germany, held the work — a donation made by Baroness Adelaide de Rothschild, its most illustrious owner, in the early 1900s.

While the Getty is not disclosing its purchase price, Potts confirmed that Ronald S. Lauder, the Neue Galerie founder who became a Getty Museum trustee in 2016, and his wife, Jo Carole Lauder, made “a very significant contribution” toward it. The museum’s manuscripts department is organizing a small exhibition to showcase its new acquisition. “Art of Three Faiths: a Torah, a Bible, and a Qur’an” will be on view from Aug. 7 through Feb. 3, 2019.