08/14/2026
Frederic and Isabel Church amassed a large collection of traditional Syrian and Palestinian clothing during an extended visit to the Middle East from 1868 to 1869, purchasing garments from antique dealers primarily in Damascus and Jerusalem, then part of Ottoman Syria. Church later used several of these garments to dress studio models, many of whom were his friends, who posed for his paintings.
We use this glass-fronted closet cabinet, an original Church family furniture piece, to display garments from this rich collection, one of the largest groupings of 19th-century Palestinian garments in the United States.
The colorful dress displayed here, made of vibrant striped woven fabric and yellow silk with triangular sleeves and an intricately embroidered rectangular chest piece, exhibits all the characteristics of a woman’s thob from Bethlehem. This example strongly resembles the attire worn by another of Church’s male studio models, part of a group posing as Arab figures for his painting The Aegean Sea (c. 1877).
Church was possibly unaware of, or unconcerned about the garment’s typical gendered association, and may have been unfamiliar with the cultural or religious contexts of several of the garments he acquired.
AHAA
Betsy Kornhauser
Maggie
Woman’s thob, c. 1850-1895. Cotton, wool, silk. Made in Bethlehem. New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Olana State Historic Site. Gift of Olana Preservation, Inc. and Museum Purchase, OL.1982.126
Detail, Woman’s thob, c. 1850-1895. Cotton, wool, silk. Made in Bethlehem. New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Olana State Historic Site. Gift of Olana Preservation, Inc. and Museum Purchase, OL.1982.126
Frederic Edwin Church, Three Bedouin Men, 1868-77. Oil and graphite on cardboard. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Louis P. Church. 1917-4-425-b
