Megillah (scroll of Esther) case c. 1965

This Megillah case, which is at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, was made by Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert. I'm thinking about the labor in making an object like this. The careful way Wolpert has built the case from solid silver. I'm looking closely at how the Hebrew letters have been hand-tooled, engraved into the surface of the metal, dividing the cylindrical form into different horizontal registers. They're really hugging the surface, aren't they? I’m wondering whether Wolpert thought of this as sculpture or writing, or both at once. Does that change whether the object is meant to be read or seen? Is the story that the case contains more important than the case itself, or do they function as one object? Thinking about how an image works, a painting or any old thing really, it's like you and the maker are having a silent conversation across time, inspiring each other.