Author Moya Tönnies on searching for Palestine’s “national dress,” a spectacular thob al-malak from Bethlehem given to Princess Mary in 1922
30 October 2024
New Books in Art History
Moya Tönnies, "Colonial Diplomacy through Art" (Brill 2024)
When writing Colonial Diplomacy through Art. Jerusalem 1918–1926, Moya Tönnies discovered that in 1922 an ensemble of Bethlehem textiles with exceptionally fine embroidery and a silver and gold chin-chain were sent to Buckingham Palace as the representation of Palestine’s “national dress.” After searching for many years where the precious robe is today, the author now asks the readers of this blog: Have you seen Princess Mary’s thob al-malak?
Palestinian embroidery is not only graceful but also a political textile art. This is true now, during times of war, but already was when Widad Kawar and Shelagh Weir began their systematic collecting and careful documentation in the 1950s and 1960s. The Palestinian dress could no longer be considered apolitical after it became a form of artistic expression for women in refugee camps. Although the embroidery continued to represent specific regional patterns of villages in Palestine after 1948, from then on it also represented displacement, seen, for example, in the limited choice of fabrics and threads available in the camps. Equally, Palestinian dresses preserved as family heritage were affected. Kawar writes that she acquired the first historic dresses in her collection from women who were in need after 1948. 1 The combination of aesthetic and political alertness made Widad Kawar and Shelagh Weir the early and farsighted curators of the works of Palestinian embroideresses. 2
In this context, my study Colonial Diplomacy through Art. Jerusalem 1918-1926 shows that the Palestinian dress has been political already before 1948. It was politicized as early as 1922 by the English artist of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Charles Robert Ashbee (1863–1942). He too acted out of a political-aesthetic consciousness. Unlike Kawar and Weir, however, he by no means stood outside the British colonial system. Rather, he was himself part of it and played an ambivalent role in Jerusalem between 1918 and 1922. Anti-Zionist, he anticipated the long-term destruction of Arab-Palestinian culture. As an artist, he meticulously observed and documented phenomena of the systematic degradation of Arab-Palestinian cultures under early British rule. When still in Palestine, he avoided any direct political statements in order not to jeopardize his position as artistic advisor to the governor of Jerusalem, Ronald Storrs (1881–1955). Ashbee instead focused on the preservation of local Arab cultural heritage. This included his colonial artistic concept to establish a school where embroideresses from Bethlehem and from the Jerusalem area would be employed to train young women in the art of textiles.
While the school project failed, he managed to raise funds for an extraordinary commission in 1921. Embroideresses from Bethlehem, whose names I have not found so far, worked on a robe with many hours to spend and with exceptionally precious fabrics and stitching threads at their hands. In my book’s chapter “Ashbee’s Appeal to the Royal Family,” I explain how a dress, a jacket, a veil, a headdress, and a silver and gold necklace from Bethlehem were politically instrumentalized in the Palestine conflict 102 years ago, when they were sent to Buckingham Palace in a cleverly conceived intervention. I show how Ashbee lobbied for Arab Palestinian culture in 1922 when a dress was given to Princess Mary (1897-1965), the young daughter of the British King George V (1865–1936), on the occasion of her wedding to Henry Charles George Lascelles (1882–1947). I describe how Ronald Storrs activated his personal connections to the Royal Family, how and by whom the dress was presented to the princess in the Throne Room of Buckingham Palace, and how she reacted to it.
Royal wedding, 28 February 1922. Throne Room of Buckingham Palace. Photograph by Carl Vandyk. Left to right, Queen Mary, the groom Henry George Charles Lascelles, the bride Mary, Princess Royal, and King George V. © National Portrait Gallery
The ensemble sent from Palestine to Princess Mary: a dress, a girdle, a headdress, a chin-chain, a veil, and a jacket. Detail of a photograph by the American Colony photographic studio, before February 1922. 3 Digital print of a glass plate negative. Library of Congress (Photo: Public Domain)
Based on a photograph and on various written sources, I have been trying to find the gown while working on my book. Supported by Rebecca Burton, the custodian of Harewood House, Princess Mary’s home since 1930, I now continue to search for it. The reason I am not giving up is the quality of the ensemble. In fine details, which I point out in the photographs and captions below, it differs from Bethlehem dresses of this period. Its exceptionally high quality is related to the political intention to appeal to the British Royal Family. From an art historical point of view, it is an outstanding example of the continuation of the courtly tradition whereby individuals or groups ask regents for attention and intercession through particularly elaborate and finely crafted gifts.
Sending the royal bride a Bethlehem garment of this type shows subtle thoughtfulness. The name of the style thob al-malak is translated as “dress of the queen,” the bridal gown of Bethlehem women who were considered royal on their wedding day. Ashbee’s intention in 1922 was to bring the Royal Family into physical contact with Palestine. Through the robe, which was introduced to the princess and to the press as “Palestine’s national dress,” the bride was directly confronted aesthetically, materially, and emotionally with the Palestinian cause. Crucially, the garment supported the Arab Delegation, which at the same time systematically campaigned in London for a new and more favourable British perspective on the Arab population of Palestine. 4 In this context, the Arab Delegation also addressed Princess Mary directly. I am currently working on a study of the Princess’s relation with Palestine, because indeed, as Ashbee had hoped, her attention was not only caught for a moment in the Throne Room in 1922. She responded in the long term. It is precisely because of her demonstrable later interest in Palestine that the loss of the Bethlehem ensemble is unlikely. My hypothesis is that she was aware of the high quality of the textiles, that she valued the pieces and passed them on to a suitable person during her life. But to whom?
I am very grateful for any information on the location of the dress. Equally, I am grateful for information that helps to identify the embroideresses by name or by comparison of the individual style of stitching seen in the details below. Kindly send a message to moya.toennies@fu-berlin.de.
This detail shows the fabric of the dress with a small section of the side panel visible on the right. The striped fabric, documented by Ashbee as red, orange, and deep blue, is called malak abu wardeh, translated “royal with flowers,” malak meaning queen and standing for the highest quality mixture of linen with silk. Wardeh, meaning roses, describes the vertical bands of woven flowers. 5 Notable for the identification of Princess Mary’s dress is the restrained style of embroidery on the side panels, as the flower stems and petals, delicately flowing downwards, are unusual.
Seen here is the lower right corner of the qabbeh, the chest panel. It is solid with embroidery. The style is known as Bethlehem work, a couching whereby the cord is twisted into elaborate floral and curvilinear patterns. The detail shows three different bands of finely couched wavy lines contrasted with geometrical bands of herringbone stitch and a variety of joining stitches.
The neck is bordered with couching and finished off with two cords ending in tassels for tying. The fine cords are seen hanging along the chest slit. The detail also shows a carefully executed variant of the bird that sometimes appears on Bethlehem dresses of that period.
The long and pointed sleeves are triangular with very wide openings at the wrists. The panels are alternating in colour. The cuffs are embroidered with a tree motif, also in alternating colours. A distinctive feature is their silk lining. Usually, Bethlehem dresses and jackets were lined with cotton.
The headdress of the shatweh type consists of a cap embroidered with geometric motifs in cross stitch. Below, three rows of coins overlapping one another are followed by a hanging row of smaller coins and coins applied to rows of coral beads. The headdress is edged with closely overlapping coins. 6
The chin-chain is made up of five silver chains with coins and dangling rosettes and birds that end in a cross pendant with a Turkish gold coin. 7 The choker is hooked into small flaps of the headdress. Also seen here is the delicate silk tassel of the cords for tying the neck.
This detail of the veil shows the lower part of the long side’s border with a cypress motif alternating with a wider plant motif. It joins the border of the short side with a “stars and feathers” pattern and a fringe ending in tassels. 8
Seen here is the dark blue velvet taqsireh, a woman’s jacket with short tight sleeves and without fastening in front. The edges are bound with gilt braid and borders of couched gilt thread embroidery. The ornaments in gold cord couching filled with satin stitch are typical for the taqsireh but this jacket is distinguished through its lining with moiré, which is unusual. 9
Princess Mary’s jacket can be distinguished from other taqsireh by the embroidery’s unusual ending in a flowering spike at the neck.
Citation: Tönnies, Moya. “Palestine’s ‘national dress,’ a spectacular thob al-malak from Bethlehem given to Princess Mary in 1922.” Brill blog, 29 October 2024. https://blog.brill.com/display/post/guest-post/moya-toennies-on-palestines-national-dress.xml.
Notes:
1) See Widad Kamel Kawar and Tania Nasir, “The Traditional Palestinian Costume,” Journal of Palestine Studies 10, no. 1 (1980): 119.
2) See Shelagh Weir, Palestinian Costume (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989), 283–284, for an overview of the early literature on the subject. A wealth of studies has been published since. Exemplary for a recent publication see Jad Salfiti, “‘The political is personal’: How Palestinian history and identity are stitched into garments,” Crafts Council / Stories, 8 July 2023, www.craftscouncil.org.uk/stories.
3) This detail shows the textiles; in the original photograph also a ceramic model of the Dome of the Rock is seen, discussed in detail in Moya Tönnies, Colonial Diplomacy through Art. Jerusalem 1918–1926, 214–220. For the full photograph and a high-resolution tiff, see Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/matpc/item/2019697799.
4) See Tönnies, Colonial Diplomacy, 208–227.
5) Compare British Museum, inv. no. As1967,02.11, in Shelagh Weir, Palestinian Costume, 130–131.
6) Compare Tareq S. Rajab Museum, Kuweit, in Jehan S. Rajab, Palestinian Costume (London: Kenan, 1989), 43, plate 16.
7) Compare British Museum, inv. no. As1989,11.3.
8) Compare Kawar Collection, inv. no. TR V 3 SF, in Gisela Karin von Welck and Katharina Hackstein (eds.), Pracht und Geheimnis. Kleidung und Schmuck aus Palästina und Jordanien. Katalog der Sammlung Widad Kawar (Köln: Rautensttrauch-Joest-Museum, 1987), 297, cat. 136; The veil is a historic type seen in photographs of the late nineteenth century. Kawar, who bought one from a lady who dated it 1870, described the fabric as fine linen but remarked that Weir identified the same type of veil at the British Museum as cotton, see ibid. 191, fig. 67; compare British Museum / Museum of Mankind, inv. no. 1966 AS 16, in Weir, Palestinian Costume, Contents page and 170–171.
9) Compare Vatican Museum, Ethnological Museum, inv. no. 112313.
