Item Details

• Date 1910
• Notes

  Item information based on source data from CIJOH. Additional information provided by CIJOH: “Paper, watercolor, pen and ink, colored paper band frame. 71 cm x 76 cm (28” x 30”). Photography by Jessica Shokrian. (Ebrahim Yahid). This is the standard design of the Isfahan Ketubah of the late nineteenth century. The page is divided into two sections, with the text in the lower section. The upper part is decorated with an overall floral background within a multifoil Islamic arch. In the center, a cypress tree—a symbol of life—is framed by three traditional leitmotifs of Iranian design: the peacock, the lion, and the sun. The lion and the sun motif can be traced back to coins from the first century CE. The use of this particular motif in ketubbot from Isfahan has often been interpreted as an indication of the dedication of the Jews of Isfahan to Iran and their pride in being one of the oldest Jewish communities in that land. In addition to this, however, these motifs can carry other meanings within the iconography of traditional Iranian design. The peacock, for instance, symbolizes beauty, and in Sufi iconography it represents the enlightened self. When combined with the lion (a symbol of action as opposed to contemplation) and a female Sun (Khurshid Khanum) (a symbol of maternal protectiveness as well as that of the active, directive, creative principle), the three images together take on an additional level of significance. Illuminating the text of the marriage contract, the drawing’s bilateral symmetry created by the correspondence in size, shape, and the relative position of each object may thus be interpreted as a symbol of the marriage union itself: a whole divisible into two similar yet opposite complementary halves, bookending the symbol of life between them to unite under the multifoil arch that represents the shelter of their home.”

• Dimensions 76 x 71 cm
• Collections Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History
• Repository Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History (631-P-1997)
• Restrictions Use of collection materials for publication purposes must cite the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History as the current repository.
• Accessed 14 February 2012
• Last Edited 3 September 2013
• Record no. 1025A91
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