Ketubbah

Public Domain

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Artist Unknown Yemeni

CultureYemeni

Titles

Ketubbah

Date1847

MediumInk and watercolor on laid paper

DimensionsSheet: 18 13/16 × 13 3/8 in. (47.8 × 34 cm)
Mat: 25 × 21 in. (63.5 × 53.3 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Joan Morgenstern in honor of Carol Johnston

Object number2025.5

Not on view

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Department

Prints and Drawings

Object Type

ProvenanceNissim bar Moshe bar Nissim and Sarah bat Sarah bat Yeshua bat Barhan, Aden, Yemen, 1847; David Solomon Sassoon (1880-1942) [1], London; Solomon David Sassoon (1915-1985); Private collection; [Benjamin Zucker, New York, until 2024]; purchased by MFAH, 2024.

[1] Described by Sotheby’s as an “avid and prolific collector of Judaica,” businessman, philanthropist, and scholar David Solomon Sassoon used his travels through Europe, North Africa, and the Middle and Far East as an opportunity to purchase Jewish manuscripts, which he also acquired at auctions and through extensive dealings with antiquarian booksellers. In 1932, Oxford University Press Published Ohel Dawid, a two-volume catalogue of Sassoon’s Hebrew and Samaritan manuscripts, which numbered over 1,200 by the time Sassoon died in 1942. Following Sassoon’s death, his son, Solomon David, inherited his father’s collection and built a library in Letchworth, England, to house it. Solomon David immigrated to Israel in 1970, and five years later Sotheby’s began dispersing the Sassoon collection in a series of sales that continued through 1994.
Exhibition HistoryNone known
Published References None known Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Recto: Graphite "3" "22"
Recto: Sticker label in printed ink '63"

Recto: Watermark, center top edge: an unidentified coat of arms (no crown at top) [similar to the shape and double-line edge in Heawood #819 / further research needed]
Recto: Countermark, center bottom edge: VG

Catalogue raisonnéNone

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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