Large, Splendid Illuminated Ketubah – Marriage of a Daughter of the Camondo Family to a Son of the Khalfon Family – ...

Large, Splendid Illuminated Ketubah – Marriage of a Daughter of the Camondo Family to a Son of the Khalfon Family – Two Distinguished Spanish Families of Bankers – Istanbul, 1849 / Signatures of the Rabbis of the City

Ketubah recording the marriage of the groom Michael son of Avraham Khalfon and the bride Rivkah daughter of Raphael Salomon Camondo. The wedding took place in Sarıyer[?], near Kuzguncuk, Constantinople, present day: Istanbul, Turkey, on Friday, 9th Tammuz 1849.
Ink, watercolor and gold leaf on paper; silk fabric.
Very large, splendid ketubah, created in honor of the wedding of two prominent banking families – the Khalfon family of Edirne, and the Camondo family, one of the wealthiest and most prominent Jewish families in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. The ketubah is enclosed in a blue rectangular border, decorated with a repetitive foliate pattern of delicate golden olive branches. Masterfully drawn, colorful, symmetric, bouquets of flowers in the upper part of the ketubah; the central bouquet is surrounded by a border of golden branches, with golden sunrays extending from it, covering most of the surface of the ketubah (this motif, which appears also in ketubot from Izmir and Salonika and in ceremonial items from the Ottoman Empire, was presumably inspired by 19th century illuminated Sultanic documents). The lower part of the leaf contains the text of the ketubah, set in a stylized frame of leaves and branches, with verses of blessings in large, gold, square characters. The ketubah text is flanked by a row of red-roofed houses set against a background of trees, portraying the row of houses located on the banks of the Bosphorus. The ketubah is backed with a sheet of high-quality silk fabric, a unique characteristic of this exquisite document, which attests to the affluency of the families of both bride and groom.
Signatures and stamps at the foot of the ketubah: signature of the groom (to the right); ink stamp of the Chacham Bashi, R. Yaakov son of R. David; and two calligraphic signatures of the witnesses, also prominent rabbis in the area: R. Moshe Fresco (right) and Yehoshua Eli (left).
The location of the wedding was not conclusively identified: it may be the Sarıyer area located on the Western (European) side of Istanbul, though the Kuzguncuk area, which was home to a sizable Jewish population until the early 20th century, is on the Eastern (Asian) side of the city.
The bride, Rivkah Camondo (1833-1863), was the daughter of Raphael Salomon Camondo (1810-1866) and granddaughter of Abraham Salomon Camondo, founder of the Camondo family, of Spanish-Portuguese descent. In the early 19th century, the Camondo family controlled banking and real-estate businesses in the Ottoman Empire. They enjoyed close ties with the Sultan's court and lent money to fund imperial projects, thus being granted a special permit to purchase lands. The Camondo family was considered one of the richest and most prominent Jewish families in the Ottoman Empire, renowned for its great wealth, banking, real-estate business and philanthropy. The family also helped found Jewish educational institutions, were involved in the Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel and established beautiful buildings (such as the Camondo palace, Kamondo Sarayi, located on the Golden Horn in Istanbul). In 1867, the family relocated to Paris, where the Nissim de Camondo museum operates until this day. The mausoleum of the family is located in the Haskoy cemetery, Istanbul.
The groom, Michael Khalfon (1829-1890), born in Brașov, Wallachia, was the grandson of Solomon Khalfon (1790-1862), a Jewish banker of Spanish origins, who served as banker of the Ottoman ruler in Edirne (Adrianople), and the son of Avraham Khalfon (1808-1884), Jewish-Spanish banker in Wallachia and Romania, who served as general consul of the Ottoman Empire in Bucharest (the Khalfon family moved from Adrianople to Wallachia in 1829).
In the decade following their wedding (specifically between 1851-1859), the Khalfon-Camondo family bore at least four children – Regina, Salomon, Hortense and Esther.

114X78 cm. Good condition. Some creases and stains, with almost no damage to text and illustrations. No folding marks. Mounted on silk.

Reference and exhibitions:
* Decorated Ketubot, by Shalom Sabar, in: Sephardi Jews in the Ottoman Empire, edited by Esther Juhasz. Jerusalem, the Israel Museum, 1989, pp. 218-237 (Hebrew).
* Turkey, edited by Yaron Ben Naeh, Jerusalem. Yad Ben Zvi, 2010, pp. 248-249 (item no. 16; illustrated) (Hebrew).
* The Art of World Religions: Judaism, by M. Kaniel. Poole, Blandford Press, 1979, p. 133 (illustrated).
* Only on Paper, Six Centuries of Judaica from the Gross Family Collection. Chicago, Columbia College, 2005.
* La splendeur des Camondo, de Constantinople à Paris 1806-1945. Paris, Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme, 2009.
* Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Leiden, 2010.
* Istanbul Haggadah. Lod, 2009.
Provenance: The Gross Family Collection, Tel Aviv, 035.011.054.
The ketubah is documented on the NLI website and on the Center for Jewish Art (CJA) website, item no. 48837.