The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Israel Museum in Jerusalem have jointly acquired a 15th-century handwritten and illuminated Torah, they announced yesterday.
The two institutions said they would share the Mishneh Torah, created in 1457, on a rotating basis.
It is a “document of great historical and literary importance, and a masterpiece of illumination” that “will be a major addition” to the Met, said Met Director and CEO Thomas Campbell.
The Torah was the highlight of an auction yesterday at Sotheby’s from the collection of Michael and Judy Steinhardt.
The announcement of the joint purchase was made shortly before the auction.
Sotheby’s declined to say how much the two museums paid, beyond that it was more than the $2.9 million paid for a Hebrew Bible in 1989 at Sotheby’s London, which set an auction record for Judaica.
The Torah had been estimated to bring in $4.5 million to $6 million at the auction.