[Illuminated Ketubah : Axalcʻixe, Georgia, 1824 or 1825].
[כתובה מאויירת : אחלציחה, גאורגה, תקפ"ה].

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Contributor:

Ḳazov, David, signer.

Language:

Aramaic

Hebrew

Subjects (All):

Yaʻaḳov ben Yitsḥaḳ, (Axalcʻixe, Georgia).

Ester bat Mikhaʼel, (Axalcʻixe, Georgia).

Manuscripts, Aramaic--Georgia (Republic)--Axalcʻixe (Samcʻxe-javaxetʻi)--19th century--Specimens.

Manuscripts, Aramaic.

Local Subjects:

Yaʻaḳov ben Yitsḥaḳ, (Axalcʻixe, Georgia).

Ester bat Mikhaʼel, (Axalcʻixe, Georgia).

Genre:

illuminated manuscripts

ketubahs

tuǧras

gouaches (paintings)

pen and ink drawings

Manuscripts.

Penn Provenance:

Sold by JCL Antiques (London), 2025.

Physical Description:

1 item : paper, color illuminations ; 463 x 410 mm (190 x 100 mm (text body) ; 90 x 160 mm (upper framing and verses)

Place of Publication:

Be-mata Akhiska y.ʻE.a. de-yatva ʻal nehar Ṭekore, [5585, that is, 1824 or 1825]

במתא אכיסכא יע"א דיתבא על נהר טקורי, [תקפ"ה]

Language Note:

Aramaic and Hebrew.

Summary:

Georgian Ketubah, written for the marriage of Yaʻaḳov ben Yitsḥaḳ of Axalcʻixe, referred to as 'the city Akhiskha (the Turkish name for Axalcʻixe), which sits on the Ṭekore (today Mtkavri, or Kura) river', to Ester bat Mikhaʼel; two paragraphs of ketubah text, with one autograph below (the tuǧra signature of David Ḳazov (? דוד קאזוב).

Notes:

Ms. leaf.

Script: Written in an Persian-Oriental semicursive script (text) and a Sephardic square script (captions, and one frame of celebratory text).

Decoration: Red Moorish arches painted around text columns; teal, green, and red half-circles around central frame, continuing pattern below ketubah; rosette-figures, drawn by ink stencil, masked, continuing the same color pattern; and a wider framing of plants, paired, with a final outer frame of traced circles; all paint gouache, and all ink geometric stenciling.

Title supplied by cataloger.

Layout: Written in two paragraphs of 11 and 9 lines (Ketubah text), with one band of text in the next layer of framing (סימן אור"ה ס"י ברכ"ה ס"י גילה...), and three upper columns of decorative text, inside individual Moorish arches ("שוש" "בסימנא" "מצא").

Related Collections:

Another illuminated Ketubah, from the neighboring village of Atskuri, with a similar program of illumination, is UPenn CAJS Rar Ms 757

Publications about:

Sabar, Shalom. Between East and West: An Important Illustrated Jewish Marriage Contract from the Remote Community of Akhaltsikhe, Georgia, 1824/25 (unpublished report : available in the curator's file).

Cited as:

Illuminated Ketubah : Axalcʻixe, Georgia, 1824 or 1825 (UPenn CAJS Rar Ms 776). Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

OCLC:

1525861258