Carl Haag The Golden Gate, Jerusalem

Carl Haag
German
1820 - 1915
The Golden Gate, Jerusalem

signed, inscribed and dated The Interior of the Golden Gateway in the Temple Area / of Jerusalem. / By Carl Haag 1896. lower right and signed and inscribed A View of the Interior / of the so called Golden Gateway / in the Temple Area of Jerusalem. / by Carl Haag, R.W.S. / Ida Villa, 7 Syndhurst Road / Hampstead on a label on the backboard
watercolour and bodycolour
Unframed: 116 by 71cm., 45½ by 28in.
Framed: 160 by 113cm., 63 by 44½in.

Condition Report:
Not examined out of frame. The work appears in excellent condition, ready to hang.

Catalogue Note:
This monumental watercolour affords a fascinating glimpse into the vestibule of Jerusalem’s Golden Gate or Gate of Mercy (Sha'ar Harahamim in Hebrew; Bab al-Dhahabi or al-Zahabi in Arabic) as it looked at the end of the nineteenth century.

The Golden Gate is the only extant eastern gate of the Temple Mount. Sealed since the sixteenth century, its interior can be accessed from the Temple Mount. Originally a double gate with two aisles, this is still reflected in its plan and main elevations; the two outer doorways were followed by a double passage covered by three pairs of domes forming a vaulted rectangular hall divided by four columns. The present view is looking east towards the blocked gate portals, now with only arrowslits giving onto the Mount of Olives. During the Ottoman era, the vestibule fulfilled different functions, from brick burning (which bricks were then used to renovate buildings and structures in the Haram esh-Sharif (Temple Mount enclosure)), to use as a watchtower and, as in Haag’s view, as a mosque.

The construction date of the present gate is unknown. In the Mishnah (Middot 1:3), the eastern gate of the Second Temple compound is called the Shushan Gate, whose construction is attributed to King Solomon. If the Golden Gate does preserve the location of the Shushan Gate, which is only a presumption with no archaeological proof, this would make it the oldest of the current gates in Jerusalem’s Old City Walls. The eastern wall visible today was built in at least four stages, during the reign of Hezekiah, during the time of Zerubbabel, in the Hasmonean period and, famously, in the Herodian period. According to some scholars, the present incarnation of the gate was built circa 520 AD, during the Byzantine period, as part of Justinian’s building programme in Jerusalem, on top of the ruins of the earlier gate in the wall. An alternative theory holds that it was built in the later part of the 7th century by Byzantine artisans employed by the Umayyad Caliphs. Closed by the Muslims in 810, reopened in 1102 by the Crusaders, it was walled up by Saladin after regaining Jerusalem in 1187. Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt it together with the city walls, but walled it up in 1541, and it stayed that way.

The Golden Gate has rich symbolic meaning to all three Abrahamic faiths. In Jewish tradition, the Messiah will enter Jerusalem through this gate, coming from the Mount of Olives opposite. Christians generally believe that this was the gate through which Jesus entered Jerusalem, and for Muslims, the Mercy Gate, as it is known, was named after the Mercy (ar-Rahmah) graveyard, located in front of it, which contains the graves of two companions of the Prophet, Ubadah bin Samit and Shaddad bin Aus. The eleventh-century philosopher and theologian Imam Al Ghazali spent an entire year living in the vestibule where he wrote half of his major work Ihya Ulumuddin (The Revival of Religious Sciences).

Provenance:
Sale: Sotheby's, The Contents of Stokesay Court, Ludlow, Shropshire, 28 September - 1 October 1994, lot 586

Mervyn Stewkesbury (purchased at the above sale), until 2023