A Bezalel Wool Carpet Depicting the Bezalel Building. Jerusalem, 1920's

This striking wool carpet stands as a woven tribute to the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts first permanent home—a romantic, crenellated stone structure acquired in 1908 through the Jewish National Fund. Formerly an orphanage perched above Ethiopia Street, the building commanded sweeping views of the Old City and the Temple Mount. For Bezalel’s visionary founder, Boris Schatz, this vantage point symbolized the school’s mission: to cultivate Jewish art in the Land of Israel as a cultural and spiritual foundation for an ideal society—what Schatz described, in religious terms, as preparing the ground for the “Third Temple.”

The central panel of the carpet presents a detailed rendering of the Bezalel building, flanked by stylized menorahs and framed by a bold Bezalel border in which broad Stars of David bearing the word “Zion” alternate with geometric medallions. The composition is brought to life through contrasting colors: a deep blue sky, ivory-beige architectural forms, and warm tones highlighting the biblical inscription from Exodus 31:3, the verse describing the master builder of the Tabernacle — Bezalel ben Uri—“I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.” The text, imagery, and palette together articulate Bezalel’s aspiration to merge ancient tradition with a modern Hebrew artistic identity.

From 1908 onward, this very building housed the school’s carpet workshop, where spinning, dyeing, weaving, and finishing were carried out. Wool was abundant, cotton warps inexpensive, and the school’s dyers adhered to natural pigments in the tradition of Persian and Turkish weaving. Production expanded rapidly: by 1909, more than one thousand rugs had been woven, and by 1913 nearly 150 weavers—many young Yemenite and local Jewish girls aged nine to sixteen—were employed in the workshop. The present rug, with its architectural centerpiece and emblematic “Zion” border, represents one of the most iconic and historically resonant designs produced at Bezalel during its formative years.

57.5 x 121.5 cm.

Literature

Jewish Carpets: A History and Guide (Oriental Rugs Series) by Anton Felton. England:1997 Published by the Antique Collectors' Club. no. 38, p. 106