This is a magnificent example of micrography, tiny Hebrew script marking out the shape of a figure, in this case a classic portrayal of the Angel of Death. In this particular example the script is in Hebrew yet the language is German. The many signed names would indicate that this was done in Central Europe, probably in a school of the German Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement, around the middle of the 19th century. It appears that these penmanship examples were carried out by the students of a class for the learning of Hebrew script. Detail : view enlarged This illustration is found in a book entitled Nisyonot be-Ketav Ivri (Experiments in Hebrew Script), which includes five examples of pictures done in micrography, a number of script samples with decoration and a great number of simpler samples of fine script. See also: Angel of Death in Bible and Talmud Angel of Death in Folklore Image and text courtesy of the Gross Family Collection, Tel Aviv. ANGELS Table of Contents