Idea 12: Framed Katubah

When my clients came to see me after their wedding,. they brought with a Katubah. For those that don't know what this is, it is a wedding contract that is part of all weddings in the Jewish faith. These days, many of those that we have the priviledge to frame are beautiful, hand-calligraphed works of art unto themselves aside from their true purpose. This katubah had a number of color elements in it like purple, green and gold leaf that we thought would make for an ideal composition.

For the frame, we selected Larson-Juhl's Musee watergilded moulding L615630, along with the matching fillet to go around the opening between the two mat layers. The fillet used is the L105192 Musee 23 karat gold leafed fillet. A fillet is, usually, a wooden strip, part of which slips underneath the mat next to it, which ends up framing the mat opening. It looks like a frame-within-a-frame and is very dramatic. Water Gilded picture frames are, by far, the most beautiful frames one can buy, as real gold never tarnishes and the leafing is nearly transparent, allowing the under-colors to come through a bit. The gold leaf looks outstanding next to the rich, olive-green suede mat. Water-gilded frames cost more than plain "gold-colored" metal leafing, but you truly do get what you pay for.

The upper mat is Crescent 7190 Moorman Olive Suede and the bottom mat is Crescent 1661 Majestic Purple. We put an overall mat width of 3 1/4" on the composition. The overall mat size was 22 1/4 x 25 1/2". The purple mat only shows 1/4". I tend to use mats on both sides of the fillets when I am concerned about the archival nature of the framing, since wood fillets contain Lignin, an acid-bearing structure that can damage paper art over time. The bottom, 100% cotton rag mat helps to create a barrier for this acid.

The glass we used is the TrueVue Museum Glass. This glass is an optically coated, U/V filtering clear glass that looks nearly invisible, but protects the art from 98% of all UV A and B light. The clarity of the Museum Glass also helps to let the viewer see all the color and detail especially in low-light areas where the art may be hung.

Designed and executed by Brian Flax, CPF

Shown by kind permission of our clients.