Page 355 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Portraits: biblical

No shirt is shown, another indicator of a pre-modern context.
The elbows are bent, forearms emerging from the “shawl” and
hands clasped at the beard: is this a pose of piety or weeping?
Wrinkles on the brow and a somber expression might be a
clue—but those characteristics are far from unique in AR’s
work. Like many other pieces, this figure has no legs; it rests on
a circular base.

8 Sampson
Wood
16.5” x 4.75”

The biblical strongman is caged within four columns forming
the corners of the block from which he is carved. The
execution of this piece must have proven a challenge to AR,
but he successfully chiseled Sampson both out of and into his
confining space. The squat muscular figure, clad only in a
jockstrap, stands with slightly flexed knees and bent back,
grasping the two palace pillars before him. Sampson has no
beard, in keeping with his youth, and the back of his hair is
clearly bobbed, the result of Delilah’s nocturnal barbering. The
piece, despite the viewer’s anticipation of immovable object
brought down by irresistible force, is oddly static, a result of its
rectilinear format and AR’s limitation to rigid poses and
postures. Sampson thus appears as an imprisoned beast, his
self-destructive release not a foregone conclusion.

23 Jephthah’s daughter *
Stone
7.5” x 12”
Inscription: Jephthah’s daughter (Hebrew)

Working in sandstone, AR realized a beautiful synthesis of
theme and style in this biblical illustration. The piece is
unfinished on one side, leaving the horizontal torso of a
woman overlaying the basic block format of the stone, oriented
to the viewer on the opposite, detailed side. Her face, at one
end of the loaf-shaped sculpture, is buried in one arm and
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