A wonderful full length portrait of little person and performer Jacob Ries (1660-1751), with descriptive text in German and Hebrew.
Reis is described as a “Hofzwerk”, which translates roughly to court dwarf or jester, to various aristocratic households around Vienna. His father was Rabbi Mordechai (Marcus) Ries, the head of a large and well known Jewish family in Prague. Jacob got his start performing as a “Badchen” at Jewish weddings, a sort of clown or jester character. He clearly had a talent for entertainment, and soon was hired in the Imperial Court of Vienna under the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Charles VI. Between 1721 and 1733 he served in the same role in Dresden for Saxon Elector August II the Strong. He lived to the age of 91.
The Hebrew text begins “My name goes far and wide: as one of the mechanical giants”, and then goes on to detail his Jewish heritage. The reference to giants echoes the comic verse in German, which puns on the meaning of “ries”/“giant”. Therefore “Ein Ries dem Nahmen nach, ein Zwerg in seiner Lange” translates roughly to “a giant according to his name but a dwarf in full length”. The text then goes on to underline his Jewish heritage, and to emphasise his virility via that fact that he and his wife have six children. Reis’s depiction in the print is stately rather than comic. He wears his hair long and in curls with a fine outfit of a tricorn hat, a frock coat, buckled shoes and a cane. The six little people in the background represent a more stereotypical portrayal of court entertainers, with one carried in a basket on another’s back, and a third riding a hobby horse.
Jacob Ries is not mentioned in the Jewish Encyclopedia. There are copies of this print at the British Museum, the Jewish Museum in London, and the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, where it is bound into the end of a copy of Il Callotto resuscitato, oder, Neü eingerichtes Zwerchen Cabinet, 1719. It is not part of that publication however, which comprises 50 comic engravings of little people with distinctive borders, but rather a stand alone print with a different style. No further copies traced through OCLC.
