Uncovering the History of Colour in Palestinian Dress

Using dye and fibre analysis to study the V&A’s collection of tatreez, Palestinian embroidered dress

About the Project

Our research focusses on the V&A’s collection of historic Palestinian dress. As little scholarship exists on the dyes used for base fabrics and embroidery threads, we ask what scientific textile analysis can reveal about the techniques, materiality and processes that underpin the making of tatreez.

Context

The project is a collaboration between the V&A and the British Museum. Diego Tamburini is a British Museum Scientist specialised in natural and synthetic dyes on global textiles. Rachel Dedman is an expert of Palestinian dress and embroidery, and the Curator of V&A exhibitions on this subject. The project brings together their complementary expertise – alongside those of colleagues in Textile Conservation and Scientific Research from both museums – to expand our knowledge of fabric and dye practices in Palestine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Aim

We aim to identify natural and synthetic dyes on a range of Palestinian garments, by testing around 50 samples via several scientific methods. Dye analysis undertaken at the British Museum will be complemented by fibre identification done at the V&A. Knowledge gained through these scientific processes will be enriched by research into the socio-economic histories of dyeing, weaving and textile import/export in Palestine, to paint a fuller picture of these practices in the Levant at the turn of the twentieth century.

Outcomes

Outcomes include a joint publication and presentations at conferences, including North American Textile Conservation and Dyes in History and Archaeology. Our research will improve the dating and cataloguing of the V&A’s collections, and feed into a symposium around the V&A Dundee exhibition Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine. Our research grew out of the V&A’s previous textile conservation project with the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, West Bank. We aim to share our findings with partners in Palestine, to inform conservation approaches and help safeguard cultural heritage under threat.

The Team

Rachel Dedman

Jameel Curator of Contemporary Art from the Middle East, V&A

Rachel Dedman is the V&A’s curator of modern and contemporary art and design from the Middle East. She curates the V&A’s triennial Jameel Prize and the Jameel Fellowship artist residency programme. Rachel is a specialist of the history and politics of Palestinian dress and textiles, and the curator of several exhibitions on this subject: for the Palestinian Museum, Birzeit; Dar El-Nimer, Beirut; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; The Whitworth, Manchester; and MoMu, Antwerp, among others. In 2025 she curated Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine for Hayy Jameel, Jeddah, and V&A Dundee, along with the Tatreez: Palestinian Embroidery display in the Jameel Gallery at V&A South Kensington. She is the author of three books on this subject, At the Seams (Palestinian Museum, 2016), Labour of Love (Palestinian Museum, 2018) and Stitching the Intifada (Common Threads Press, 2024). Read less

r.dedman@vam.ac.uk

Instagram @racheldedman

Dr Diego Tamburini

Scientist: Polymeric and Modern Organic Materials, British Museum

Dr Diego Tamburini is an analytical chemist and material scientist. He joined the Department of Scientific Research at the British Museum in 2016 with an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship focusing on the identification of natural dyes in historical and archaeological textiles. In 2020, he moved to the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research of the National Museum of Asian Art (Smithsonian Institution) as a Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellow. He then re-joined the British Museum in 2021 in the role of Scientist: Polymers and Modern Organic Materials. He specialised in the characterisation of polymeric and organic materials mostly with chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques. He has published extensively on his research interests, which span from natural and synthetic dyes and polymers to various classes of organic materials used in cultural heritage objects. Read less

DTamburini@britishmuseum.org

Instagram @diego.tamburini88

Elizabeth-Anne Haldane

Lead Textile Conservator, V&A

Elizabeth-Anne Haldane has an MA in Textile Conservation from the Royal College of Art/ Victoria and Albert Museum Programme and is an accredited member of the UK Institute of Conservation (ICON). She leads the Textile Conservation Team which is comprised of 7 permanent conservators and several project conservators who work on all types of textiles and dress from the V&A's collections. In 2022 the Textile Conservation Team hosted staff from the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit for a month-long skills sharing initiative delivering practical training in textile conservation treatment and display methods to help facilitate the establishment of a textile conservation studio at the Palestinian Museum. Following a reciprocal visit to Birzeit in 2023 to see the studio and textile collections it became clear that investigating and sharing information on the dyes used to create the V&A's Palestinian textiles would be of value to researchers who do not have access to these specialist techniques. Read less

e.haldane@vam.ac.uk

Dr Lucia Burgio

Lead Conservation Scientist, V&A

Dr Lucia Burgio FRSC is Lead Conservation Scientist at the V&A and guides the scientific analysis of museum objects. Chair of the RSC Heritage Science Expert Working Group. UK rep to the EuChemS Working Party on Chemistry for Cultural Heritage.

l.burgio@vam.ac.uk

Dr Donatella Banti

Conservation Scientist, V&A

Dr Donatella Banti has an MSc in Chemistry from the University of Pisa (Italy), a PhD in Chemistry from King’s College London and a Postgraduate Diploma in the Conservation of Easel Paintings from the Courtauld Institute of Art. She works both as a Paintings Conservator and a Conservation Scientist, using a wide range of techniques for the analysis of organic and Inorganic materials and artists’ techniques. Read less

d.banti@vam.ac.uk

V&A