Palestinian Costumes, A Rare Bethlehem Style Wedding Royal Dress (Thobe Al-Malak), with a Head Cover or Veil (Lefhah), Probably Beit Dajan, or Dayr Tarif, Old Palestine-The British Mandate Period, Early 20th. Century.

Identification Number: 504
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Description

The beautiful dress is heavily couched with silver-gilt wrapped thread and embroidered on Syrian red silk fabric and on Atlas yolk colour silk patches.

The overall embroidery on the dress is fine with densely couched embroidered panels, the high proportion of the silk and silver thread are embroidered on the couched applied square plastron chest panel (qabbeh) and decorated with various floral patterns.
Also the silver wrapped threads and the silk are embroidered and couched on the sleeves and skirt of the dress.

The head cover (abba) is mainly woven in blue with red Syrian silk with various bands, the centre of the Abba has strips of thin silk embroidery.

Dimensions:

140 cm height.
55 cm width of the chest.

Condition;-

Very good, some stain and marks on both the dress and the veil (Abba).

References:-

Palestinian Costumes, by Shelagh Weir, Published For The Trustees Of The British Museum, By British Museum Publications, 1989, ISBN: 0-7141-1597-5. Please see similar lots catalogued on page 238-239.

A similar example can be found at the collection of the Palestinian Heritage Foundation, West Caldwell, NJ 07007-0531, USA.
Palestinian Costumes, by Shelagh Weir, Published For The Trustees Of The British Museum, By British Museum Publications, 1989, ISBN: 0-7141-1597-5. Please see similar lots catalogued on page 238-239.

For similar almost identical embroidered sleeves and other Palestinian Embroideries please see the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York –USA.
Lot Accession No. 2008.274.2