This elaborate Venetian engraving presents Sukkot through a richly layered vision of the Jerusalem Temple, biblical history, and festival ritual.

At its center, in enormous outlined Hebrew letters, are the concluding words of Psalm 76:13:

יִבְצֹר רוּחַ נְגִידִים
 נוֹרָא לְמַלְכֵי אָרֶץ

“He curbs the spirit of princes; he is awesome to the kings of the earth.”

Moses, holding the Tablets of the Law, stands at the lower left; Aaron, dressed as the High Priest, stands opposite him. Fruit and vegetation fill the ornamental frame, linking the biblical and Temple imagery with Sukkot as an agricultural festival.

Across the upper register, the engraving evokes Solomon and the dedication of the Temple. Above the central image of the altar appears, in tiny Hebrew letters, לֹא יָכְלוּ הַכֹּהֲנִים לַעֲמֹד מִפְּנֵי הֶעָנָן — “the priests could not stand because of the cloud” (1 Kings 8:11). The circular inscriptions surrounding the two annular scenes likewise draw on the biblical account of Solomon standing before the altar and blessing the assembled people of Israel in 1 Kings 8.

The composition culminates at the bottom with a scene explicitly captioned שמחת בית השואבה (Simḥat Beit ha-Shoʾevah), the celebration associated with the water-drawing ceremony during Sukkot in the Temple.

The print therefore does more than illustrate the customs of Sukkot. Its inscriptions and images deliberately collapse different periods of sacred history into a single visual field: Moses and Aaron, Solomon and the dedication of the First Temple, the Temple rites of Sukkot, and the festival experienced by the print’s own viewers. The Temple is at once biblical memory, ritual ideal, and an imagined presence within Jewish life in eighteenth-century Venice.

The engraving is signed in Hebrew at the lower left by Francesco Griselini (1717–1787), a Venetian engraver, naturalist, and writer. Primarily printed in black and white, this impression was enhanced with hand coloring.