Bidspirit auction | Rare Original Large Print! One

Rare Original Large Print! One of the First Printed with the Portrait of the Admor the Tzemach Tzeddek - Berlin, 1886 - Large print with the portrait of the Admor Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson - the Tzemach Tzeddel. Printed at the top of the print, the Hebrew inscription: ”מצח צדק”. Printed beneath his portrait, in Hebrew and Russian: ”לזכר עולם יהיה צדיק! תמונת הרב הצדיק הגאון מ”ה מנחם מענדיל מליובאוויטש זצ”ל. / Портретъ Либавичскаго раввина Менделя Шнеерсоа”. This print was made in Berlin by Mordechai Katznelboigen Publications, Vilna, in 1886. Tears and restored blemishes. A small part in the center was completed with a photocopy. Mounted on cardboard for reinforcement.  The portrait of the Admor the Tzemach Tzeddek The story about this famed portrait of the Tzemach Tzeddek has several versions.  The most common of them is the one that was written in the Chabadic journal for women ”די אידישע היים” (issue 96, p. 15):  An anonymous artist, who was not Jewish, yearned to paint the portrait of the Tzemach Tzeddek, but knowing that he would not succeed in the usual manner - as the Tzemach Tzedek would not agree to it - a plan occurred to him: he came to the Tzemach Tzeddek on Shabbat , observed him very carefully until he managed to etch his portrait on his memory. In order for the momentary scene to remain fresh in his memory, the painter rushed home with his eyes almost closed, and immediately upon arrival, he took his drawing tools and began to sketch what he had seen - on the canvas. Later, when the painting was shown to the Tzemach Tzeddek, he was very distressed because it was done on Shabbat (which is why the Tzemach Tzeddek appears dressed in Sabbath clothes in the portrait). However, he 'found solace' in the fact that the painter made several errors: a) The non-Jewish painter depicted the Tzemach Tzeddek's outer garment in a way that the left flap lay over the right flap - as is the custom of non-Jews. Among Jews, on the other hand, the opposite is customary: the right side of the outer garment rests and overlaps the left side. b) In the painting, the Tzemach Tzeddek is seen holding a book. But while Sifrei Kodesh are written and read from right to left, and are thus opened from the right, the non-Jewish painter painted the book as if it were one of the books of the gentiles, on the contrary, which open from the left”. This print is one of the first two known versions based on the famed portrait. Both versions were printed in the some year. This one was printed in Berlin by Katznelboigen of Vilna; the other was printed in Vilna as a lithograph of N. Metz. This version does not appear in the documentation of the Rashdab Levin in Mibeit Hagenazim. In later years, this picture was reprinted again and again and even later, the printing block was reversed so that the right side of Rabbeinu's outer garment rests on the left side and the book he is holding opens from the right.  See more: Reb Shalom Dober Levin, Mibeit Hagenazim, Brooklyn 2010, pp. 257-262 (enclosed).