Neoclassical Hanukkah Lamp (Hanukiah)

This elegant Hanukkah menorah was produced in Brno, Moravia (today the Czech Republic) by master silversmith Franz Kaltenmacher. Kaltenmacher was among a handful of Austro-Hungarian silversmiths who worked almost exclusively for Jewish patrons, providing ritual silver pieces for the synagogue and home. Kaltenmacher's career illustrates the common phenomenon of Jews commissioning silver objects from Christian workshops throughout Europe as a result of Jewish exclusion from craft guilds.

The lamp’s backplate is decorated with the imperial crown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This proud display of loyalty to the ruling House of Hapsburg was a sign of increasing Jewish integration into mainstream society during the post-Enlightenment period. The lamp is further embellished in the then-popular Neoclassical style with urns, scrolling vegetation, and figures clad in Roman scale armor. Neoclassicism was an influential movement in 17th- and 18th-century decorative arts, inspired by major archaeological discoveries such as the excavation of Pompeii and Herculaneum, ancient Roman cities buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.