![[ar-SA]Go to[ar-SA] Sydney Jewish Museum [ar-SA]Home page](/AIS/Content/Images/logo_b3660c53.svg){kind=logo}
Moses on Mount Sinai
رقم الكائنM2025/082:008
العنوانMoses on Mount Sinai
المنشيء Perle Hessing (artist)
الوصفPerle Hessing, Moses on Mount Sinai, Oil on canvas, date unknown.
In this biblical scene, Hessing depicts Moses on Mount Sinai, holding aloft the two stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, inscribes with Hebrew numbers 1 to 10. Moses, with a long flowing white beard, emerging against a backdrop of rolling green hills and a sunlit mountain peak possibly evoking the divine presence. Below him, a crowd of Israelites gather, rendered in Hessing's signature flat perspective and disregard for naturalistic scale. At the lower right, a woman stands beside a donkey. This work illustrates a key moments in Jewish tradition - the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, as recounted in the Book of Exodus. Hessing's composition emphasises communal witness, with the tightly packed group possibly symbolising the unity of the Israelite people in receiving Gods law.
Self-taught, naive-style painter, Perle Hessing, draws on her Jewish faith, childhood memories, and personal story of survival. Born in 1908 in Poland, later settling in Australia in 1951, she began painting in her fifties, encouraged by Desiderius Orban (1884-1986), a Hungarian-Australian painter and art teacher. Her work is inspired by biblical stories from the Old Testament, folklore of shtetl life, Jewish rituals, as well as lived experience as a migrant. Her art is symbolic, blending narrative with personal and collective memory. Perle is the mother of artist Leonard Hessing (1931-2004), who was part of Australia's abstract expressionists. Keen to see how he might succeed in Europe, he ended up in London. She moved to the UK in circa 1973 where she died in 2001. In 2023, a collection of 24 paintings was generously donated to the Sydney Jewish Museum by her grandson, Theo Hessing.
In this biblical scene, Hessing depicts Moses on Mount Sinai, holding aloft the two stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, inscribes with Hebrew numbers 1 to 10. Moses, with a long flowing white beard, emerging against a backdrop of rolling green hills and a sunlit mountain peak possibly evoking the divine presence. Below him, a crowd of Israelites gather, rendered in Hessing's signature flat perspective and disregard for naturalistic scale. At the lower right, a woman stands beside a donkey. This work illustrates a key moments in Jewish tradition - the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, as recounted in the Book of Exodus. Hessing's composition emphasises communal witness, with the tightly packed group possibly symbolising the unity of the Israelite people in receiving Gods law.
Self-taught, naive-style painter, Perle Hessing, draws on her Jewish faith, childhood memories, and personal story of survival. Born in 1908 in Poland, later settling in Australia in 1951, she began painting in her fifties, encouraged by Desiderius Orban (1884-1986), a Hungarian-Australian painter and art teacher. Her work is inspired by biblical stories from the Old Testament, folklore of shtetl life, Jewish rituals, as well as lived experience as a migrant. Her art is symbolic, blending narrative with personal and collective memory. Perle is the mother of artist Leonard Hessing (1931-2004), who was part of Australia's abstract expressionists. Keen to see how he might succeed in Europe, he ended up in London. She moved to the UK in circa 1973 where she died in 2001. In 2023, a collection of 24 paintings was generously donated to the Sydney Jewish Museum by her grandson, Theo Hessing.
التاريخ 1973
الموضوعJewish life, Jewish artists, , family life
اسم الكائنpaintings
الأبعاد
- width: 490.00 mm
height: 780.00 mm
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum collection, donated by Theo Hessing.
In appreciation to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) for supporting this archival project.