Painted metal wall bust of a sneering Jewish man in a shtreimel

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. 

The bas-relief was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family. 

Painted metal wall bust of a sneering Jewish man in a shtreimel 

overall: Height: 7.625 inches (19.368 cm) | Width: 5.375 inches (13.653 cm) | Depth: 1.125 inches (2.858 cm) 

Bas relief wall plaque of a Jewish man in a shtreimel, a cloth hat with fur trim often worn by Eastern European Orthodox Jews in the 19th-early 20th century. The figure is marked Fagin on the back, but this portrait does not resemble descriptions of that character from the novel Oliver Twist, 1838-1839, by Charles Dickens, although it may have been marketed that way. Caricatures of Jewish figures were commonly used to decorate everyday items, such as ceramics, toys, walking sticks, and cork stoppers, examples of racial antisemitism becoming part of everyday life. This bas-relief plaque is one of the more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic artifacts and visual materials. 

No restrictions on access 

No restrictions on use 

Painted cast metal plaque in the shape of the the right profile bust of a caricatured older Jewish older man in a black hat with a round crown and brown fur trim, resembling a shtreimel. His face is painted light brown with a deeply creased brow and cheeks, a curled gray and brown sidelock, and a thick mustache and pointed beard. He has white bushy eyebrows and angry, narrowed black eyes, a very large hooked nose, and a thick, downturned, lower lip, open, with a pink interior. The neck tapers to the right into a straight edge. The open back is painted black and shows the mold impression. A liftable metal hanging loop is welded on the upper back. back, bottom right edge, handwritten, white ink : FAGIN