The pitcher was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
The Katz Ehrenthal Collection is a collection of more than 900 objects depicting Jews and antisemitic and anti-Jewish propaganda from the medieval to the modern era, in Europe, Russia, and the United States. The collection was amassed by Peter Ehrenthal, a Romanian Holocaust survivor, to document the pervasive history of anti-Jewish hatred in Western art, politics and popular culture. It includes crude folk art as well as pieces created by Europe's finest craftsmen, prints and periodical illustrations, posters, paintings, decorative art, and toys and everyday household items decorated with depictions of stereotypical Jewish figures.
Ceramic pitcher modeled in the form of a man with a long gray beard, a large nose, thick eyebrows and rosy cheeks. He wears a long, light brown coat with a tall collar and a red tie over a yellow vest. He also wears black shoes and brown breeches with gray stockings on his diminutive legs. He holds a small, black coin bag in his right hand and has a red rag or handkerchief draped over his right arm. The top of his head is an opening for pouring, and a narrow, white, C-shaped handle is attached to his back. The underside of the pitcher is unpainted, white, and has a black maker’s mark comprised of a sideview of a heraldic rampant lion with a long, curly tail inside a small circle with text above and below. A partially torn away paper sticker is adhered to the back. back, sticker, handwritten, blue ink : 3977-
No restrictions on access
No restrictions on use
overall: Height: 7.000 inches (17.78 cm) | Width: 4.750 inches (12.065 cm) | Depth: 5.250 inches (13.335 cm)
Toby jug depicting Fagin holding a small coin bag made by Roy Kirkham & Co. Limited in Staffordshire, England, during the latter half of the 20th century. Roy Kirkham started his self-named company in the 1970s, producing character and Toby jugs, figurines, and later, fine bone china. Toby jugs were first made in the mid-18th century and are ceramic pitchers usually modeled on full-bodied representations of popular characters while character jugs usually only feature the head and shoulders. Fagin is portrayed with a beard, a large nose, and thick eyebrows; all stereotypical physical features attributed to Jewish men. In “Oliver Twist,” Fagin is the villainous leader of a gang of children whom he has instructed in the ways of criminality. He attempts to corrupt the protagonist, Oliver, in the same manner. In the novel, Fagin is described in his first scene as hunched over a fire holding a toasting fork, imagery that reinforces the antisemitic stereotype of Jewish associations with the devil, due to its resemblance of a pitchfork. He is repeatedly referred to as “the Jew” in the book and also emphasized as a greedy, miserly, and cowardly character; all traits aligning with common antisemitic stereotypes. However, in a later edition of the novel, Dickens reduced his use of “the Jew,” substituting it for pronouns or other phrases. Even in this later version, Fagin is still repeatedly and negatively referred to as “the Jew,” and remains emblematic of multiple antisemitic canards. Later writings by Dickens portrayed Jews in a more positive light, however, the reprehensible Fagin is his most remembered Jewish character.
Roy Kirkham Toby jug of Fagin holding a coin bag