This brilliantly colored Italian sukkah plaque celebrates the return from Babylonian exile and the renewed observance of Sukkot in the Land of Israel. Painted in ink and gouache on paper, it was created in 1813 by Mattitia Pugliasi, who records at the bottom that he made the work at the age of seventy-six.

At the center is a landscape of trees, grain, and other vegetation. Beneath it appears a passage from Nehemiah 8:17 describing the celebration of Sukkot by the community that had returned from exile:

וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כָל הַקָּהָל הַשָּׁבִים מִן הַשְּׁבִי סֻכּוֹת וַיֵּשְׁבוּ בַסֻּכּוֹת כִּי לֹא עָשׂוּ מִימֵי יֵשׁוּעַ בִּן נוּן כֵּן בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל עַד הַיּוֹם הַהוּא וַתְּהִי שִׂמְחָה גְּדוֹלָה מְאֹד

“The whole congregation that had returned from captivity made sukkot and dwelt in the sukkot ... and there was very great rejoicing.”

A Latin rendering of the verse appears below the painted composition. The juxtaposition of Hebrew and Latin places the plaque within the multilingual visual and intellectual culture of Italian Jewry.

The biblical verse is especially apt for an object intended to decorate a sukkah. Nehemiah describes a community recovering an ancient practice after displacement: the returned exiles build sukkot and discover in the renewed observance a source of שמחה גדולה מאד, “very great rejoicing.” Pugliasi surrounds these words with an exuberant landscape of plants, flowers, grain, and trees, allowing the imagery of abundance to extend the meaning of the text across the entire sheet.

Such painted paper decorations became a feature of Italian sukkot beginning in the eighteenth century. Objects made to beautify a temporary outdoor structure were themselves vulnerable to moisture, sunlight, handling, and repeated use. Their fragility makes surviving examples particularly valuable witnesses to the domestic and artistic life of the festival.