98 Portrait of Jacob Auspitz

Adolf Pichler

Óbuda, 1856

Oil on canvas

From the collection of the Jewish Museum of Óbuda, 1950

The old Jew on this large oil painting is Jacob Auspitz, who was a Talmud teacher in Óbuda, and probably lived to be 112 years old, between  1744–1856. There is a local legend regarding this portrait: he did not allow himself to be painted in his lifetime, so Adolf Pichler, a painter from Munich who was in Óbuda at the time, painted the picture after his death. Instead of his name, he wrote a Mishnah quotation on the picture: “Don’t look at the vessel, but at what it contains.” (Mishnah, Pirke Avot, 4:27.)