Description
On June 11th, 2025, the world will celebrate World Doll Day, recognized by the United Nations to highlight the importance of play in children’s lives.
This exceptional vintage diorama from the Ottoman period provides a fascinating glimpse into early 20th-century Palestinian life.
This unique play-set includes over eighty hand-carved and oil-painted wooden figures, each on a wooden base, depicting a vibrant Palestinian open market (Shuk) with a variety of lifelike characters and cultural elements.
Historical Significance of Toys:
Toys have always played a crucial role in children’s development, fostering creativity, imagination, and social skills. During the 19th century, “working action people” toys were popular across Europe and the Western world.
Initially crafted from materials like cast steel, brass, and carved wood, these toys evolved over time into more affordable and durable forms made from lead, resin, and eventually plastic, other cultures such as in India had made action people toys in terracotta and fired clay.
Such hand-made miniature figurines allow children, enhancing their cognitive development and understanding of the world around them and are also considered as means of storytelling and cultural preservation also functioned as educational toys, encouraging children to imagine, to create their own stories and scenarios.
This diorama is a rare and likely one-of-a-kind piece on the art market, offering collectors a unique window into the cultural heritage and everyday life of historic old Palestine, while also underscoring the timeless value of toys in child development.
Diorama Highlights:
- They reflect the broader tradition of miniature model-making in the Holy Land, historically focused on religious nativity scenes.
- Cultural Representation: The figures depict a range of activities, from incoming traders and caravans to the city bringing their commercial ballets on the back of camels, horses, mule, donkeys, people engaging in daily commerce and prayer, providing a rich tapestry of Palestinian culture.
- Scene Elements & Depictions Include:
- Bedouins and their tent setup.
- Naturalistic elements like trees, cactus, livestock, camels, donkeys, and a snake on a tree, possibly referencing the biblical story of Adam and Eve
- A lively market scene with:
- Diverse Characters, Professions and Street vendors reflecting everyday life in historic Palestine, such as the grocery sellers, the pottery merchants, the copper and cooking pots (tanajir) seller, the coffee beans mortar seller (mehbash), the scribe (katib), the water and olive oil sellers, the shoes repairer, the wood cutters, the flower sellers which were usually picked from the hills and mounts used for making albums with a variety of dried and pressed flowers.
- Women in traditional attire waring various traditional Palestinian thobs, carrying children, large water jars brought from the water springs, or goods on their heads.
- An architectural Elements: depicting a mosque scene with a cylindrical-shaped minaret likely represents Bab Al-Asbat (the Gate of Al-Asbat) along the north wall of the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem or the model may represent the Mahmudiye Mosque and Sabil (Jaffa), both prominent Ottoman-era landmarks.
- Also, there are few vintage black and white photos which had been taken to the Jaffa gate in Jerusalem, the views of the market and stone walls are very similar to our model, for more details please see for another similar dress please see the following reference book: Palestinian Costume, by Jehan S. Rajab, Published by Kegan Paul International, London & New York, 1989, ISBN 0 7103 0283 5. Please see plates 31 the Jaffa gate exhibited on page 56.
- Worshippers gathering, performing ablution, and ladies looking for donations.
- An imam and muezzin (caller to prayer) atop a cylindrical minaret.