This coming February in New York, Sotheby's will offer one of the most important illustrated Jewish prayer books to come to market: the Mahzor of Vienna of the Rothschilds, dating back to the early 15th century. This monumental liturgical book for the High Holidays represents not only the refinement of medieval book art, but also the fragility and resilience of Jewish life in Europe. Recently returned to the descendants of the Rothschild family, the manuscript tells a remarkable story of survival and the recovery of cultural memory.
The Vienna Mahzor
The tradition of illustrated Jewish prayer books flourished in the 13th century in southern Germany. Fewer than twenty examples survive today, and the Vienna Mahzor is one of only three still in private hands. It is the second illustrated medieval mahzor to be auctioned in over a century, following the record-breaking sale of Luzzatto's Mahzor in 2021, which sold for $8,3 million.
The Mahzor is named after its famous 19th-century owners, the Rothschild banking family.
Salomon Mayer Rothschild (1774–1855), who moved to Vienna in the early 20s, purchased the manuscript in Nuremberg on 5 August 1842 for 151 gold coins as a gift to his son Anselm Salomon Rothschild (1803–1874)A title page with the family's baronial coat of arms and a dedication in Hebrew commemorate the purchase and the desire to preserve the book for future generations. The manuscript then passed from Anselm Salomon to his son Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild (1836–1905), and subsequently to his grandson Alphonse Rothschild (1878–1942). During the'Connection In 1938, Alphonse and his wife Clarice were in England, while the Nazi authorities seized the Palais de Justice in Vienna and the family's entire art collection, including the Mahzor. Sent to the Austrian National Library, it remained there for decades without being recognized as looted.
Rediscovered thanks to the coat of arms and the dedication
The Mahzor was rediscovered in 1998-1999 thanks to the studies of the Center for Jewish Art, which identified its coat of arms and dedication. In 2021 it was exhibited to the public in the exhibition The Vienna Rothschilds: A Thriller at the Jewish Museum in Vienna. In June 2023, under Austrian art restitution law, the Mahzor was formally returned to the heirs of Alphonse Rothschild, closing a long chapter of loss and recovery. The Vienna Mahzor was completed in 1415 by a Jew named Moses, son of Menachem, for communal use during the festivals of Rosh Hashanah and Yom KippurIts pages are decorated with animals and fantastic creatures, Gothic arches, scrolls and golden initials, made with mineral and organic pigments that still retain their brilliance today. The decorative style recalls the Lake Constance School of Lighting, an important artistic centre in southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and reflects the influence of earlier Hebrew manuscripts brought to Vienna by refugees after the Black Death of 1348-49.
As Sharon Liberman Mintz, Judaica specialist at Sotheby's, points out: “Rarely does a manuscript encompass so many worlds at once: faith and art, persecution and survival. The restitution of the Mahzor is a moment of justice and remembrance, an invitation to celebrate not only its beauty, but also the enduring power of memory and the faith it represents.”
Cover: The Rothschild Mahzor of Vienna, 1415 – Prayers for the morning services of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). Courtesy of Sotheby's
