Painting in oil paint on canvas of a detailed, naturalistic portrait of a Jewish man, with a black kippah on his balding head. He has long brown/gray sidelocks and medium length beard, a large, protruding ear, a high wrinkled forehead, dark brown heavy lidded eyes, and a large hooked nose. He wears a black jacket with a white, buttoned collar shirt and is portrayed from the midchest up, in slight left profile. His wide red lips are parted in a lopsided grin and he stares intently at a full upper plate of dentures, pink with a row of even white teeth and 1 gold tooth which he holds in his right hand. His left hand is raised, fingers curled, with the thumb and forefinger touching in a pinching gesture, as he prepares to pull out the gold tooth. The background is muted brown and green. It is nailed to a wooden stretcher frame with a worn stamp on the back.
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The painting 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.
overall: Height: 13.500 inches (34.29 cm) | Width: 10.125 inches (25.718 cm) | Depth: 0.750 inches (1.905 cm)
Oil portrait of a Jewish man holding an upper denture with a gold tooth by an unknown painter. The canvas was from a shop in Vienna, active mid-late 19th century, but the painting is thought to have a British connection. There was a huge influx of Jewish immigrants from Austria and Germany to England during that period. The portrait, though naturalistic, is a stereotypical image of a religious Jewish man with kippah, sidelocks, and large hooked nose. It also promotes the negative stereotype of the Jewish merchant looking for any way to profit from a situation. Jews had been expelled from England for 400 years, from 1290-1656. Thus their dress, customs, and way of life were often portrayed as exotic, colorful, and strange in popular culture. This painting is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic visual materials.
Portrait of a Jewish man smiling at a denture with a gold tooth