'CUSTOMS AND FASHION IN THE LEVANT': PORTRAIT OF A BALKAN YOUNG LADY
Possibly French Orientalist School, France, 18th century

Opaque pigments, ink and pencil on European laid paper, the vertical composition possibly a study of local fashion and traditions in the Western Provinces of the Ottoman Empire, portraying a barefoot young lady wearing a high polychrome-embroidered white head-cloth, similar to ceremonial headdresses used in the Balkans, with a multi-stranded necklace, large puffy sleeves and a long brown tunic, holding an embroidered mandil (head-cloth) in her hand, similar in style to Greek, Turkish and Israeli headscarves, on the lower left corner a fainted pencil annotation La demoiselle .. 1740 (?), mounted, glazed and framed, the painting 22.5cm x 16.5cm excluding the frame.