The Jewish Museum London holds around 50 paintings, mostly oil on canvas, either of Jewish interest or by prominent Jewish artists. The collection includes paintings by artists such as Thomas Hudson, Tilly Kettle, Solomon Alexander Hart and Abraham Solomon. Most of the collection dates from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and includes portraits of prominent members of the community, in particular early rabbis of the Great Synagogue who effectively acted as Chief Rabbi of England. There are also a small number of paintings that relate to Jewish life in the East End from the late nineteenth–early twentieth century. These were acquired by the London Museum of Jewish Life which merged with the Jewish Museum in 1995. Notable paintings in the collection include 'A Memento Mori' by the seventeenth century Jewish Dutch artist Benjamin Senior Godines; an early eighteenth-century portrait of Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi (1656–1718), the earliest known depiction of an Ashkenazi rabbi; and a synagogue scene, 'Procession of the Law', during the festival of Simchat Torah, by prominent English Jewish artist Solomon Alexander Hart, dating from 1850.