Druze Woman of Mount Lebanon, Antique Hand-Colored Costume Print, 1854

A Druze woman, an original antique hand colored print of 1854, the coloring applied by hand over a printed outline. The caption below the figure reads DRUSEN VROUW., meaning Druze woman.

She walks barefoot toward the viewer's left on a strip of ground, steadying a water jar on her head with one raised hand and carrying a second, smaller jar in the other. Her head is covered with a blue cloth and a white veil. She wears a long blue gown with wide white sleeves, a green and orange sash at the waist, a decorated panel at the side of the skirt, and full red trousers gathered at the ankle. Her face is turned to the viewer.

No artist, lithographer or publisher is named on the plate, and there is no plate number above or below the image; the printed caption is the only lettering on the sheet.

The plate comes from the second volume, the Tweede Deel, of De Volken van den Aardbodem, the Dutch edition of Heinrich Berghaus's illustrated work on the peoples of the world, translated from the German by M. J. van Oven and published at Gorinchem by J. Noorduyn en Zoon in 1854. The title page of the volume announces 120 extra fine plates colored after nature. Berghaus was a German geographer, best known for his Physikalischer Atlas. The Druze are a religious community whose homeland in the nineteenth century centered on Mount Lebanon, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along all four edges. Foxing over much of the margin. All four corners read as present in the scan. Several larger brown marks.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.