Albrecht de Vriendt (1843 – 1900)

Lea, a Bride from Bethlehem

Signed lower right: A. De Vriendt

Inscribed upper right: Lea / Beit-Lehem

Oil on canvas

80.5 x 56.5 cm. (31 ½ x 22 ¼ in.)

Provenance:

Private collection, Brussels.

Literature:

In Memoriam. Albrecht de Vriendt, Antwerp 1901, p. 39, ‘Jeune mariée de Bethléem’.

Exhibited:

Schilderijen en andere Kunswerken, Rotterdam 1882, no. 443, ‘Lia, jonge vrouw van Bethlehem’;

Société des Amis des Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux 1885, no. 171, ‘Jeune mariée de Bethléem’.

Albrecht de Vriendt’s depiction of a young woman from Bethlehem is a remarkable and rare work within the context Franco-Flemish Orientalism of the latter part of the 19^th century. Rather than being a generic and exoticized image of a Near Eastern woman, as was so often the case in the work of de Vriendt’s contemporaries, here we have the likeness of an actual person met by the artist on his travels to Palestine, as well as a highly accurate, and important, description of her costume. Named Lea, the sitter wears a malak, the traditional bridal gown of Bethlehem, as well as a shatweh, the fez-liked headdress bearing the glinting coins of her dowry, crowned with a white shawl.

Entitled ‘Jeune mariée de Bethléem’ the painting is listed amongst de Vriendt’s principal works in the 1901 publication In Memorium. Here it is dated to 1882 and forms part of a small group of paintings with Palestinian subjects, outliers within the artist’s usual oeuvre. Also exhibited in Bordeaux in 1885, de Vriendt’s picture was clearly well-received at the time and considered an important work by the artist. Recent scholarly developments, coupled with the benefit of a wider lens onto the past, allows us, nearly a century and a half later, to understand the painting’s significance not just within de Vriendt’s oeuvre but also within the context of late 19^th-century Orientalism in general.

Born in Ghent in 1843, de Vriendt would go on to have an extremely successful career by the standards of the day, reaching all the milestones expected of the leading academic artists of the second half of the 19^th century. Son of the decorative painter Jean de Vriendt, Albrecht and his siblings were imbued with a love for Flemish art and culture from an early age. Indeed, his elder brother Juliaan and elder sister Clementine would go on to become painters too, with the former specialising in the scenes of Burgundian courtly life for which Albrecht was famous. 

In 1865, de Vriendt joined his brother in Antwerp, with the pair coming under the influence of Victor Lagye, the great Belgian history painter of the era, before settling down in Brussels. With his interest in Flemish history and impressive technical ability, de Vriendt’s career quickly flourished, starting at a moment when the young Belgian state began to promote monumental art and scenes from the past, which were regarded as a way of solidifying national identity. Exhibiting regularly at both the Brussels and Paris salons, de Vriendt won numerous awards and honours. He was ultimately appointed to the directorship of the Royal Academy in 1891, succeeded by his brother in this post upon his death in 1900.

In 1880, the year of his marriage to Laure Fiévé, de Vriendt journeyed through Italy with his brother, before travelling on to Egypt and Palestine. As travel conditions improved, a visit to the Holy Land was increasingly to be found on the itinerary of the nineteenth-century European and American traveller. De Vriendt was therefore treading a well-worn path, following in the footsteps of major artists and cultural figures, from Jean-Léon Gérôme to Mark Twain. That said, Belgians were less likely to visit Palestine than their French, German and British contemporaries: with less political interest in the region, they did not have a consular presence, unlike their Great Power neighbours. De Vriendt was therefore one of only a small handful of Belgian artists to travel to the Near East in the 19^th century.

On his return to Belgium, the artist produced several paintings inspired by his time in the Holy Land, including the present work.[1] These are all listed in In Memorium for the year 1882, though some were likely started or even completed the previous year, when de Vriendt was fresh from his voyage. Numerous on-the-spot studies exist from his time in the Near East, which were presumably used as an aid in creating his larger compositions once back home. We can imagine him working on his depiction of Lea from his studio in Brussels, using sketches and possibly even photographs from his visit to Bethlehem, as was common practice at the time. Why Lea captured de Vriendt’s attention is not answerable with any certainty, though perhaps his decision to paint this young bride was in part sparked by his own marriage, which took place in the same year as his trip to Bethlehem.

When de Vriendt visited Palestine in 1880, the region was under Ottoman rule, though subject to increasing European involvement. By this time, the total population of Palestine numbered 457,000, of which 399,000 were Muslim, 43,000 Christian and 15,000 Jewish,[2] though the proportion could differ quite dramatically from town to town. Bethlehem had a Christian majority. In 1867, an American visitor describes the town as having a population of 3,000 to 4,000, of which about 300 were Muslims and with ‘the remainder belonging to the Latin and Greek Churches with a few Armenians’.[3] Given these statistics, and with the Biblical name of Lea, de Vriendt’s sitter was surely Christian and, though Christian identity in the Middle East is complex, was probably ethnically Arab, of an Orthodox denomination.

Fig. 1, Tancrède Dumas, Girl from Nazareth,

albumen print, Private Collection

Fig. 2, Felix Bonfils, Girl from Bethlehem,

albumen print, Private Collection

Vibrantly attired, Lea stands against a whitewashed wall. To her right, de Vriendt has painted the branches and leaves of a tree. This may have some symbolic function though could equally merely be a pictorial element, reminiscent of several portrait photographs taken by Tancrède Dumas in his Beruit studio at around the same time (fig. 1). Lea wears the full bridal trousseau of a Bethlehemite woman. As a visual document of Palestinian costume, de Vriendt’s image is highly important, comparable only to the best photography of the time (fig. 2). There are very few paintings, if any, which can match it.  A girl’s wedding trousseau contained her first collection of ceremonial costumes, to be worn at her marriage and thereafter on festive occasions. The items would be replaced or altered several times over the course of her lifetime, as they became unfashionable or wore out. The vivid, ostentatious costumes of her prime years were also exchanged for more restrained clothes as she grew older.

The malak was the most important item for a trousseau and always donated by the groom. Made of a blend of silk and linen, Lea’s malak has been woven into vibrant, multi-coloured stripes. Her chest panel, known as a qabbeh, is heavily embroidered, as was typical in Bethlehem, and acts as a celebration and demonstration of wealth. The red taffeta centre is surrounded by a green and yellow border of zig-zag appliqué, known as tishrimeh. This costly and lavish style of embroidery emerged quite specifically in Bethlehem, a relatively wealthy town thanks to its importance as a Christian site which generated much work and income from the constant stream of pilgrims. The Christian element was also important in exposing the inhabitants to the ornate and richly embellished church vestments and furnishings, which reflected itself in their costume.[1]

Lea also wears a shatweh, a headdress ornamented with silver coins. The ‘provision of the headdress with coins was the responsibility of the bride’s father and was looked upon as the rightful share of the bride-price’.[2] Entirely the bride’s property, she could dispose of these coins, or add to them, as she wished. The shatweh itself was made from red broadcloth and stiffened with padding, with small earflaps on each side. In de Vriendt’s picture, these earflaps can be seen underneath the white veil which extends all the way down Lea’s back. Coins also adorn the iznaq, an elaborate necklace extending from either side of the shatweh.

The women of Bethlehem also wore a variety of silver bracelets and rings. The well-to-do brought jewellery of the highest grade of silver, made from melted down Maria Theresa dollars mixed with about fifteen percent copper.[3] Lea wears a silver bracelet on each wrist, as well as a silver ring. On her left wrist she also wears a bracelet of beads, perhaps of amber or glass.

This attention to the accuracy of the costume, combined with Lea’s individualised physiognomy, means that we are looking at a real person, someone encountered by the artist on his travels. Even if we know nothing of Lea’s biography, beyond what we can glean from looking at the painting, this alone puts de Vriendt painting at odds with those of most of his contemporaries, whose depictions of languidly featured and sensual ‘Oriental’ women were highly generic, playing to the fantasies of a Western audience. To understand this point, one needs only to compare Lea to the work of de Vriendt’s Belgian contemporary, Jean-François Portaels (fig. 3), or the French artist Émile Vernet-Lecomte (fig.4). 

Looking back from nearly a century and a half later, we can clearly appreciate how remarkable and unique de Vriendt’s image is within its context, standing out as not only a beautiful work but also, more importantly, as a depiction of a real person and as an extraordinary document of Bethlehemite costume.

Fig. 3, Jean-François Portaels, Reverie, oil on panel, 89 x 66 cm,

Private Collection

Fig. 4, Émile Vernet- Lecomte, An Eastern Beauty, oil on canvas,

60 x 42 cm, Private Collection