Albrecht de Vriendt’s Remarkable Bride from Bethlehem

Friday, March 17

2PM – 2.30PM CET

Stand SC9, MECC Maastricht

Albrecht de Vriendt’s Lea, a Bride from Bethlehem is a remarkable and rare work within the context of 19th-century Franco-Flemish Orientalism, depicting a young woman from Bethlehem. Rather than being a generic and exoticized image of a Near Eastern woman, as was so often the case in the work of the artist’s contemporaries, it is the likeness of an actual person met by the artist on his travels to Palestine in 1880. Simultaneously, the painting also represents an important visual document of Bethlehemite costume, presenting the sitter in a highly accurate costume: the malak, the traditional bridal gown for Bethlehemite women, and a shatweh, the headdress bearing the glinting coins of her dowry.

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