The Song of Songs.

Jerusalem: Hasafer Publishing House, 1923. First edition illustrated by Ze'ev Raban. Quarto. Unpaginated but with 26 beautifully colored and executed plates by Raban illustrating a canticle. This is a bilingual edition of Hebrew and English so after each Song illustration by Raban there is a tissue guard with Hebrew letters presumably giving the number of the verse, etc., and opposite each Raban plate (which as this is a jewish book are bound to the rectos if you read the book from back to front as is required[ There is an English trnslation but these are much more simple being done in black ink although with a bit of color ar=t the top of each son. on the English plate the chapter and verse are written in by hand in different colors. Publisher's gray cloth with a Jewish device in blue on the covers and simulated sewing around the edges, lovely multicolor floral endpapers (with some restoration at the corners), sympathetically rebacked to style. A very clean copy with bright and lovely plates.; no tears or marks and in the original, albeit somewhat restored binding.Ze’ev Raban (1890-1970), born Wolf Rawicki (Ravitzki), was a leading painter, decorative artist, and industrial designer of the Bezalel school style, and was one of the founders of the Israeli art worldWolf Rawicki (later Ze'ev Raban) was born in ód , Congress Poland, and began his studies there. He continued his studies in sculpture and architectural ornamentation at a number of European art academies. These included, in 1905, the School of Applied Art in Munich at the height of the Jugendstil movement; in 1907, the neo-classical studio of Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris; the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, then a center of Art Nouveau, under symbolist and idealist artists Victor Rousseau and Constant Montald; and in 1912 he left Europe, joining the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem. Raban is regarded as a leading member of the Bezalel school art style, in which artists portrayed both Biblical and Zionist themes in a style influenced by the European Jugendstil (similar to Art Nouveau) and by traditional Persian and Syrian styles. Like other European art nouveau artists of the period, such as Alphonse Mucha, Raban combined commercial commissions with un-commissioned paintings. He was a multi-talented artist although mainly in the making of Jewish symbols and religious pieces.