Composed in 18th-century Italy, a lavishly decorated scroll of the book Esther is currently being restored by specialists at the British collection where it was found. Zsofia Buda writes:
When the scroll was rediscovered within the John Rylands Library in 2017, it was instantly recognized for its beauty. Consisting of a layer of heavily decorated cut parchment upon which the biblical book of Esther is written, this lace-like parchment has then been adhered to what appears to have once been colorfully decorated paper, all backed by red silk fabric with a decorative braid around all edges.
The elaborate structure appears to be something of a rarity among Esther scrolls; this being only one of four known “sibling” scrolls that have the layered textile, paper, and cut parchment structure. The other scrolls consist of two layers only: parchment and textile. The Rylands scroll also appears to be the only one of the four to have pigment applied to the paper and on a small section of the parchment (though this is most likely a later addition).
More about: Book of Esther, Jewish art, Rare books