The porcelain apes of Moses Mendelssohn

"Under Frederick the Great, every Jew who married was required to buy otherwise unsalable china from the royal porcelain factory. Moses Mendelssohn, a man remembered today as "the Jewish Socrates" - and the grandfather of composers Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn - was forced, when he married, to buy twenty life-size porcelain apes."--BOOK JACKET.