Live Auction 7956Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction
Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945)
Lot 165 PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE GERMAN COLLECTION

Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945)

Merkaba

Closed17 February 2011

Price Realised

GBP 103,250

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Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945)
Merkaba
titled 'Merkaba' (upper centre); titled 'Merkaba' (on the reverse)
gouache and lead collage on gelatin silver print in artist's steel frame
image: 40 x 33 5/8in. (101.5 x 85.5cm.)
overall: 44 5/8 x 38 1/8in. (103.5 x 96.8cm.)
Executed in 2002

Private Collection, Germany.

Specialist note

"Merkabah is the Hebrew word for "chariot", used both for literal chariots that people ride and figurative chariots that God rides in. Based on Old Testament texts that associate the chariot with the heavens and the throne of God (such as 2 Kings 2:11; Isa. 66:15; Jer. 4:13: Ezek. 1), some apocryphal literature of the intertestamental period began to use the word in reference to some type of mystical ascent to the divine throne. The throne vision in the apocryphal book 1 Enoch 14 (150 B.C.) probably represents the oldest example of such merkabah mysticism, but similar descriptions occur in the New Testament as well (2 Cor. 12:1-7; Col. 2). Similar descriptions of mystical ascents continue to appear in Jewish literature after the New Testament era."

J. Daniel Hays, J. Scott Duvall, C. Marvin Pate in Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times, Grand Rapids 2007.