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Object 9. Leaver’s Certificate for St. Paul’s School, London

2003

Description:

Raphael Loewe collaborated with Linda and Michael Falter of Facsimile Editions to design a Leaver's Certificate for St. Paul’s School, London, where his father was educated. He translated the original Hebrew Psalms 91:11 and 121:8 into English, Latin and Greek to reflect the classical languages originally taught at the School. The Certificate is still in use today.

Herbert Loewe went to school at De Warren House School, Gravesend and then to St. Paul’s School, London. In 2003, Raphael suggested the idea and Orna Frommer-Dawnson, an Israeli designer living in London, was asked to adapt the text into a suitable Leaver's Certificate. On the reverse of the Certificate is an explanation by Raphael of the texts and the associations with the school. He highlights the teaching of Hebrew, as well as Greek and Latin, at the school since the seventeenth century.

Raphael chose the two passages, "For he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways" (Psalm 91:11) and "The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and even for evermore" (Psalm 121:8) as they reflect the values expressed in the school moto fide et literis (by faith and by learning) and the school’s ‘enlightened admissions policy’. Raphael chose to use the King James Bible for the English rendering, and composed his own Latin version, which uses the alcaic verse form and is a reduction of the Hebrew from two lines to one. This is another fine example of not just his polyglot skills but his finesse as a translator, and as a poet.

Credits: Leopold Muller Memorial Library, Raphael Loewe Pamphlets Collection, shelfmark: ARaphael 1,5