Marriage Contract on paper. Uniting Elijah Abulafia and Astrolah on Friday, 9th Adar II 1872

(KETHUBAH).

9th Adar II

Izmir

1872

Text in black ink, Sephardic square and cursive Hebrew scripts. Text contained within stylized arch and pillars fashioned by a thin, painted gold line with long blue branches and leaves and flowering buds that fill in the border.The upper portion is filled with flowering blue bushes lightly pained with dots of orange, green, yellow and purple that represent buds, creating a feathery, colorful rhythm with a central medalion containing branches and flowering buds within an outer frame of colorful points. The architectural scheme is echoed in the way that the page is cut. The upper portion is cut into a stylized Moorish arch with edges cut in a wavy fashion with an oval protrusion at top

This kethubah is typical of the decorative program for Izmir Kethuboth of the Late period (1860’s -80’s). Kethuboth from this period display elements of the Moorish arch design brought to Izmir by Sephardi Jewish migrants. See S. Sabar, Decorated Ketubbot, in Sephardi Jews in The Ottoman Empire, IMC (1990), pp.219-234, pl. 53c