Ezekiel, Abraham Ezekiel

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EZEKIEL, ABRAHAM EZEKIEL

EZEKIEL, ABRAHAM EZEKIEL (1757–1806), English artist, son of the silversmith Abraham Ezekiel (d. 1799) who helped to build the synagogue in Exeter in 1763 together with his brother Benjamin. The son, practicing as a silversmith, watchmaker, and scientific optician, was a successful miniature and portrait painter enjoying a high reputation locally. He also engraved portraits by Opie (1783), Reynolds (1795), and others and executed several bookplates.

His son, solomon (Isaac) ezekiel (1781–1867), a plumber and tinsmith by trade, settled in Penzance in Cornwall. He founded "The Penzance Hebrew Society for Promoting the Diffusion of Religious Knowledge," printed (1844–47) the lectures on Abraham and Isaac which he gave before it, and published an incisive letter (1820) which prevented the establishment of a Conversionist Society in Penzance.

bibliography:

Rubens, in: jhset, 14 (1935–39), 104–6; C. Roth, Rise of Provincial Jewry (1950), 60; JC (March 22, 1867), and supplement (May–June 1933). add. bibliography: odnb online.

[Cecil Roth]

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