Woman of Bethlehem
date: label: Date
content: February 12, 1868
name: label: Artist
content: Frederic Edwin Church, American, 1826–1900
notes: label: Catalogue Status
content: Research in Progress
label: Description
content: Full-length figure sketch of a woman in Bethlehem, Palestine, viewed obliquely and shown wearing a variety of draped clothing. Each item of clothing is assiduously noted in the right margin. At the time (and even today), women of this region often wear a cotton inner garment called a thob which might be blue or white and was worn with a folded girdle of striped fabric. Over this might be worn a striped sleeveless topcoat similar to the men's, but shorter and narrower. In Bethlehem, married women wore the shatweh, a stiffened cloth or felt cap decorated with embroidery or sometimes stitched with coins. It was sometimes covered in a headcloth.
label: Description
content: Verso: Loose figure sketch of a young peasant boy near Bethlehem, Palestine. He wears a white tarboosh cap and a small strip around his waist with otherwise draped clothing.
place: label: made in
content: Bethlehem, Palestine
label: place depicted
content: Bethlehem, Palestine
setName: label: See more items in
content: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Collection
label: See more items in
content: Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design Department
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Louis P. Church
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 1917-4-1312-a
objectType: label: Type
content: figures
label: Object Name
content: Drawing
label: Type
content: Drawing
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Graphite and white gouache on tan laid paper; verso: graphite
label: Dimensions
content: 27.4 × 19.2 cm (10 13/16 × 7 9/16 in.)