DescriptionThis fragment was received as part of a group donation formed during the 2023 genocide in Gaza, when members of the Palestinian diaspora sought to reclaim Palestinian embroidery and return cultural material to Palestinian museums and community institutions. This panel is one of five embroidered chest panels included in that donation. These embroidered chest panels date to the mid to late twentieth century and are fragments from earlier Palestinian dresses (thobe, ثَوْب). From the 1950s onward, embroidery on Palestinian dress increasingly expressed a national Palestinian identity rather than the localized regional affiliations traditionally associated with specific villages or towns. Embroidery from this period commonly features curvilinear motifs executed exclusively in cross-stitch, including stylized flowers, branches, and birds. Dresses were cut using fewer fabric components, a shift that made their production more accessible to Palestinians with limited financial resources for cloth, threads, and embroidery materials, particularly in refugee camps and in exile. Palestinian women have continued to gather in community settings to stitch and create traditional dresses in the diaspora, including the donors of this object, sustaining Palestinian embroidery practices through both inherited and contemporary forms. Citation: Ghnaim, Wafa. "THOBNA: Reclaiming Palestinian Dresses in the Diaspora." Washington, DC: The Tatreez Institute, 2023.