Franciszek Smuglewicz

Four drawings—two of which are signed by the king himself—known as The Jewish ritual belong to the most mysterious artworks in the entire collection. It is not clear whether they depict an authentic, furtively witnessed event, a ritual performed within one of the orthodox communities of the time, or they are Smuglewicz’s ‘ethnographic fantasy’, or a parodical representation that from today’s perspective seems overtly anti-semitic. The first composition was described by the king as Kashering of a Jewess, while the second—as Freezing of a Jewess. In Yiddish, the term kosher (Hebrew kasher meaning fit, appropriate) refers to the ritual cleanness of primarily food and utensils, as well as adhering to the provisions of the Jewish law. Meanwhile, the term ‘kashering’ concerned mostly the way of purifying newly bought or ‘tainted’ dishes and cutlery that had to be, among others, washed under running water. In the Jewish culture, the command concerning ritual purification in running water included also women during menstruation and in childbirth, sometimes men before important holidays and converts to Judaism. All discussed drawings depict a young, nude woman submerged in an ice-hole. We can suspect that they represent the first ritual bath of a woman that she would take on the day of her marriage. In certain orthodox communities, the command to do ritual ablutions in running water was observed literally, by practicing—according to medieval traditions—bathing in rivers, even in winter.