Bidspirit auction | (AMULET). Adam veChava Chutz Lilith

(AMULET). Adam veChava Chutz Lilith [“Adam and Eve - excluding Lilith.”] Single page printed broadside. Includes several Kabbalistic formulae in both Judeo-German and Hebrew to protect a female newborn baby. Lightly stained, margins frayed, carefully taped on blank verso. 7.5 x 9 inches (18 x 22 cm). Central/Eastern Europe, c. 1750 This rare mid 18th-century Protective Amulet (or, “Shemirah”) was to be hung over the cradle of a newborn baby girl, to guard her from harm. According to Kabbalistic teaching, Lilith, the negative counterpart to Eve, is envious of the latter's children and attempts to create mischief upon them. As narrated in the Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith was cast out of Eden for refusing to submit to Adam, subsequently she became a wandering spirit, feared for her enmity toward children. The inclusion here of the names or images of the three angels Sanoi, Sansanoi, and Semangalof was believed to prevent Lilith from entering the newborn’s home. Extant examples of such printed protective amulets are extremely rare, particularly those made for female newborns, which have a far lower survival rate than the more frequently produced amulets for male children. The majority of extant Lilith-related amulets are later, and of Sephardic origin. Examples displaying this level of visual completeness and textual integrity are especially rare. That this specimen has survived in such condition despite its fragility, its ephemeral nature, and the devastating destruction of Jewish material culture in the 20th century renders it a monumentally rare witness to Jewish maternal devotional life.