The Deaconess Ketubah

The Viennese Jewish tradition is not only aristocratic, but fair and modern in a powerful way: the Viennese school combines classic thought and attitudes with the buzzing modernity that burst onto the world in the early 20th century.

Gustav Klimt, emerging from that Vienna Secession, took these ideas to the next level. His works consistently had themes like jurisprudence, not traditionally captured in art but essential for the modern, sophisticated world. He combined symbolism and big murals in a way reminiscent but building on the Art Nouveau. All with a masculine-feminine tension and gold, gold, gold everywhere.

These themes fit perfectly into a modern Ketubah: the glitzy gold yet traditional art; the political-ish themes but not political propaganda; the elegance of the classic with the look of the modern.