Oriental woman with sineklik

Oriental woman with sineklik

by | Jewellery & Art

Jewellery and art history

Oriental beauty with sineklik

Published May 24, 2025

Jewellery in paintings — that’s something I always keep an eye on. It tells you not only about the fashion and the painter’s eye for detail, but also about how people at the time viewed dress and adornment. Oriental Woman with Sineklik, painted by Pinel de Grandchamp in 1846, is one such portrait that draws us in with both costume and ornament.

This blog is part of my series on Jewellery and Art, exploring how artists depicted jewellery and dress in portraits and Orientalist paintings. You can also read Portrait of A Syrian woman, Decoding Habiba’s jewellery, and more posts in this series as it grows.

Oriental beauty with sineklik by Pinel de Grandchamp

This article focuses on a single painting, Oriental Beauty with Sineklik (also known as Odalisque à l’éventail) by the French artist Louis-Emile Pinel de Grandchamp, and explores how the jewellery in the painting places the woman painted in her cultural context – and where things went wrong.

Pinel de Grandchamp and the Orientalist tradition

Louis-Emile Pinel de Grandchamp (1834–1894) was a French painter associated with the Orientalist tradition. He spent a significant part of his career in Egypt, where he produced numerous works – and unlike some of his colleagues his paintings were based on direct observation. He mostly painted scenes in Cairo, and these include recognizable architectural details that actually are from Cairo, not a made-up version of a random ‘Oriental’ city. When you see one of his paintings, you recognise the setting as Cairo immediately – at least, I did. [1]

Oriental Beauty with Sineklik is different in that it focuses on the individual sitter and her adornment. There are no details in the background like a building or a recognisable view that tell us where this lady is from, and the title is particularly unhelpful. So, in such portraits, it is the jewellery and dress that tell us where this lady is from!

Oriental beauty with sineklik: jewellery as key to identity

In this painting, a woman is seated against a dark red background, holding a sineklik (fly whisk) in her hand. Her gaze is directed away from the viewer, and she wears a loose white garment, a striped headwrap, and multiple items of jewellery. Although the title refers only to her as an ‘Oriental beauty,’ her adornment offers specific clues about her identity.

The eye-catcher is her gold necklace: composed of repoussé segments and disc pendants. The central pendant is larger, consisting of a crescent-shaped pendant with a disc below it, again framed with dangling discs. This necklace is of a type called kirdan. It is commonly associated with Ottoman jewellery, worn in Cairo during the 19th century. See a few examples of this type of adornment in the gallery above: click to enlarge the images.

Read more about the history of the Ottoman-style kirdan here

Her earrings match the necklace and echo designs from the 19th century, like for example depicted by Edward Lane [2]

Draped over her left wrist and hand is a strand of large yellow beads. They may be amber or glass, and they echo the look of a misbaha or tasbih, a strand of prayer beads. A similar strand of beads can be seen on the painting Oriental Woman Burning Incense, by Cesare dell’Acqua (1869, also in the gallery above: click to see its details).

Her headwrap, formed from a striped textile and loosely coiled around the head, aligns with styles worn by women in elite Cairene households.

So, that’s what we see: but what does all this mean?

Beyond the title: what ‘Oriental Beauty’ leaves unsaid

Despite the generic title, the woman in the painting is not without identity. Her adornments anchor her in a specific time and place; they firmly situate her in a late Ottoman Egyptian setting. The crescent-shaped necklace, with its repoussé craftsmanship and coin pendants, was typical of Egyptian adornment and is well represented in both photographic archives and surviving examples.

But this painting has its problems as well.

The anonymity of the sitter for example: she is not mentioned by name, and reduced to a very general title. In fact, we don’t even know if this is an actual portrait, or a model that served to create a generic view of that faraway region, ‘the Orient’.

This fits in with broader trends within Orientalist art: it produced very generalized images of “Eastern” subjects. In these works, jewellery and dress were frequently used as symbolic ‘shorthand’, you could say, flattening the layered meaning in jewellery and dress into a singular, romanticized visual language.

Take the strand of prayer beads, for example, dangling from her wrist. For starters, it misses its central bead, and is reduced to ornamentation: within its own cultural and religious context, this would not have been depicted as such.

Add to that the composition of the work: I don’t know if you noticed, and I apologise for drawing your eye to this, but everything seems to be centred around her cleavage. It’s literally the focal point of the painting, and the V-shaped lines of her garment, the handle of the fly whisk and even the perfect vertical line from her earrings through the central element of her necklace end up in her cleavage. I mean, jeez.

So, yes, the jewellery and dress allow us to add more context to this painting than just a random Oriental beauty – but the painting itself leaves viewers to interpret the scene based on partial information and oversimplifications.

Jewellery, dress & identity in Orientalist art

Pinel de Grandchamp’s Oriental Woman with Sineklik is not only an Orientalist portrait; it is also a visual puzzle. While the title centres on an accessory, it is the jewellery and dress that provide the key to interpretation. The kirdan necklace, Egyptian ornamentation, and Ottoman Cairo clothing place the sitter firmly in a cultural context that the label “Oriental beauty” glosses over.

So now that we know all this, what to do?

This painting reminds us how Orientalist art both reveals and conceals. It preserves details of dress and adornment that allow us to reconstruct cultural identity, while at the same time reducing women to symbols of an imagined East. By asking what jewellery tells us — and what the title leaves unsaid — we can approach these portraits with a more critical eye.

The thing is to be aware of that world beyond the artistic frame in which it is delivered to us. And this is where having insights in jewellery and dress can play an important role, too. Awareness of the importance and meaning attached to adornment helps resisting the anonymity imposed by the painting’s title and composition. There are more, and deeper stories to be told than just a woman holding a fly whisk and staring out of an invisible window.

That’s why I do what I do, in running this blog and creating courses to explore just that world, and I’m happy you’re here to join me on that journey!

Other blogs in the series on Jewellery & Art are here:

Decoding Habiba’s Jewellery

Portrait of a Syrian woman by Portaels

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References

[1] See for example this painting, that shows the Ghuriya complex on the main street of Cairo’s souq: it still looks like this today https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6154449

[2] Lane, E.W. 1842. An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. The Definitive 1860 Edition. The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo (2003).

The Bedouin Silver blog gives credit where credit is due! Transparent referencing and citing sources helps us all grow. Would you like to do the same and quote this article? Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

The Bedouin Silver Jewellery Blog: Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery, and obtained her PhD at Leiden University on jewellery, informal ritual and collections. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only. Sigrid strongly believes in accessibility of knowledge, and aims to provide reliable and trustworthy content: that’s why the Bedouin Silver blog provides references and citations.

Mermaid imagery in Egyptian amulets: protection & meaning

Mermaid imagery in Egyptian amulets: protection & meaning

by | Magic & Amulets

Water spirits

Mermaid imagery in Egyptian amulets: protection & meaning

Updated September 14, 2025

The terrifying truth behind mermaid imagery! At the end of the 19th century, silver amulets with images of mermaids were widely available in Egypt’s jewellery souks. In Egyptian folklore, water spirits and protective amulets went hand in hand: images of mermaids were believed to guard against illness, child mortality, and misfortune. Their blend of folklore, protection, and jewellery makes mermaid imagery on amulets especially fascinating. Why were these so popular, and what world hides behind the use of these things?

Water spirits, the Nile, and mermaid beliefs in Egyptian folklore

Obviously, the Nile has always been a defining factor for Egypt. It’s a bit of a cliché, but Egypt would not exist without the river. Up until the construction of the Aswan Dam in 1902, Egypt was dependent upon the yearly flooding of the river to deposit fertile soil on the banks of the Nile, and much of daily life on the river banks was connected to it. This vital significance has resulted in many gods, water spirits, ceremonies and rituals being associated with the Nile from Pharaonic times up until the present.

There are tons of water spirits in both ancient and contemporary folklore tales, and in this article, I’d like to zoom in on the mermaids. Because these are not as friendly and pretty as their depictions would have you believe!

Disease, child mortality and mermaid amulets

As early as 1916, Meyerhof brings up that water spirits are much feared as a source of disease. [1] You only need to look at the reality of Nile floodings to see how much truth there is in this statement: although the flood deposited much-needed soil for agriculture, when the water slowly withdrew, pools of stagnant water with rotting plants were an ideal environment for rats, mosquitoes and other creatures that spread disease.

And that is where the mermaids come in. This same author lists the mermaid Safīna right along with the Qarina in the category of female ‘demons’. Specifically, he notes that she is, again much like the Qarina, responsible for harm brought upon children.

This fear of mermaids killing children was very persistent in Cairo. Drieskens even records recent Cairene belief in a mermaid living in the Nile, determined to kill people: the negative associations attached to the mermaid apparently still linger.[2]

That fear was based both in drowning, and in disease: water-borne diseases such as salmonella, cholera, typhoid fever and parasitic infections affected children under the age of 5 signifcantly. [3]

As with anything that threatens children, here again reverse magic is practiced, too: mermaids were also assumed to help in cases of infertility – if they felt like it. Water spirits are extremely capricious, and can’t really be trusted.

The same ambivalence and connection to fertility beliefs can be seen in Nigerian river spirit Mami Wata and Moroccan water spirit Lalla Aicha Bahriya.

Mermaid imagery on Egyptian silver amulets: form, function, symbol

So, what about those amulets? At the end of the 19th and early 20th century, mermaid imagery often occurred on amulets. These were made in silver, readily available and were meant to protect the wearer from Safīna. [4] The mermaid amulets exist in various forms: embossed, pear-shaped amulets with a mermaid, the image of a mermaid engraved in a pendant, or as appliques to be sewn on to clothing.

Most of the time, the mermaids are depicted as we know them: a female with the tail of a fish. They are adorned with jewellery, hold lotus flowers or papyrus stalks, and look much friendlier than they are. That is also a form of magic: by depicting these scary creatures as beautiful and friendly, perhaps they would turn into benign beings….there’s always hope!

But: not all of them look pleasant. A few early pendants show mermaids with bald heads, or only a few strands of hair. They look considerably more terrifying in comparison to the well-coiffed mermaids that form the majority of the amulets.

Visualizing water spirits: mermaid amulets as reflection of everyday Egyptian life

The appearance of mermaid imagery in Egyptian amulets is more than a decorative flourish. It reflects a wider system of folk belief, protection, and everyday symbolism. The whimsical and volatile nature of the river spirits mirrors the realities of living with a river that has the power to nurture, but also to kill.

And when you look at amulets as a reflection of that everyday reality, this is where the true stories begin to unfold themselves. These amulets gave visible form to concerns about disease, fertility, and the dangers of the Nile: a simple silver piece of jewellery with a mermaid engraving carried with it a whole world of meaning — at once amulet, ornament, and expression of belief. I think that is the greatest power they have!

Amulets and charms in jewellery: learn to decode jewellery yourself!

If you are intrigued by the history, meaning, and traditions behind amuletic jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, an in-depth exploration awaits! The online course on Amulets & Charms delves into the fascinating world of talismans, charms, and protective adornments, offering detailed insights into their cultural contexts and historical significance. Whether you are a collector, a jewellery enthusiast, or simply curious, this course provides the tools to deepen your understanding and appreciation.

Click here to see more, and enroll today to uncover the hidden stories behind these remarkable objects – you could be watching the first episode in 10 minutes from now!

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References

[1] Meyerhof 1916, p. 317-318 (and see also p. 314)

[2] Drieskens 2008, p. 102

[3] El-Kowrany, S. et al. 2016. See the article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090123215001137

[4] Meyerhof 1916, p. 319.

The Bedouin Silver blog gives credit where credit is due! Transparent referencing and citing sources helps us all grow. Would you like to do the same and quote this article? Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

The Bedouin Silver Jewellery Blog: Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery, and obtained her PhD at Leiden University on jewellery, informal ritual and collections. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only. Sigrid strongly believes in accessibility of knowledge, and aims to provide reliable and trustworthy content: that’s why the Bedouin Silver blog provides references and citations.

Restringing ethnic jewellery

Restringing ethnic jewellery

by | Tips for collectors

ethnic necklaces

Restringing ethnic jewellery

Published Jan 19, 2024

‘This necklace is on its original stringing’ is something you may read in jewellery descriptions. But what does ‘original stringing’ mean? In this article, I’ll zoom in on stringing and restringing: it’s cultural context and 5 practical points to inspect when checking for restringing.

Ethnic jewellery: the many lives of necklaces

What I love about ethnic jewellery is that these jewellery pieces lived. They were part and parcel of everyday life, they moved along with their wearers, they bumped into other things, they got dented, banged up, damaged.

Take a necklace, for example. It may have been gifted to a bride on her wedding day, or assembled from treasured beads by a girl. It was worn on festive occasions or maybe every day, it was seen, admired and cherished.

And at one point during its long life, it broke. The thread snapped, perhaps after a sharp edge of a bead had chafed at it relentlessly, or simply because years of wear finally made it give way.⁠

It was repaired, and at that point may have been embellished: another silver bead added because finances had been good, maybe another amber bead found its way in the composition as well…

And there you have it: a second incarnation of the same necklace. Rinse and repeat: one necklace may have been repaired or changed countless times.⁠

An antique Kabyle necklace with coral and silver pendants
Close-up of a spectacular Amazigh Berber necklace from the Draa Valley in Morocco, showing its abundance in coral, amber and trade beads

Restringing ethnic jewellery: a part of life

Now this applies to straightforward, single strand necklaces, but also to beaded necklaces with multiple strands, lots of beads, silver amulets strewn in between…pieces like these would eventually break, once or several times, and be repaired.

That is for example visible in the Kabyle necklace in the gallery above. Clicking it will enlarge the image. It is still on an original stringing as the wearer had intended it, but upon closer inspection, the pendants are not all of the same age. Some have lost all their enamel, while others still have it; some have become smoothly worn, while others look more crisp. This necklace has been restrung at least once, in which a different selection of pendants was made.

Necklaces might also intentionally have been taken apart to be restrung with newly acquired beads, or to be divided up into smaller necklaces for children.⁠

The point is that a piece you see *today* is not necessarily the same as when it was first created. Jewels were altered over time, adapted, improved, taken apart, made smaller…altering ethnic jewellery is a regular practice.

A heavy silver Omani somt necklace with Maria Theresia Thalers
A gorgeous heavy silver somt necklace from Oman

Restringing ethnic jewellery: an example from Oman

A great example are these two necklaces from Oman: click the photos above to see both necklaces.

The first necklace is an older one that is still on its last stringing. The thick hemp rope has darkened over time, the knot at the closure is frayed, and the dirt is also visible between and underneath the beads. A trick often used to make a necklace look old, is to darken its stringing. Looking between and underneath the beads may help assert if it actually has been worn, or that it just looks that way.

The second necklace is on a clean rope. You also see how the necklace is closed in a very different way: the two ends have been stitched together. It is much younger: this piece was a gift to a foreign teacher in the 1980s. Her Omani students wanted to present her with a parting gift, and financed this necklace together. The teacher never wore it, but instead treasured it at home.

Both are on original stringing, but one has not been worn as intensively as the other. And what is more: necklaces like these were restrung from time to time, too. [1] When the rope would get too stained or dirty, or new beads or pendants were added, the necklace would be restrung in its entirety.

Old silver jewellery in Marrakech
Glinting Maria Theresia Thalers in a silversmith's workshop, Amman
Old silver jewellery in Cairo's Khan el Khalili

Restringing ethnic jewellery: materials

This continuous stringing and restringing also means that it is perfectly possible for new materials to sit next to older ones. It’s not uncommon to find plastic beads added to coral, or to see newer coin pendants find their way into a necklace of older ones. As the photos above show (click to enlarge them), you will find bits and pieces of older jewellery lying around in just about every workshop from Marrakech to Cairo and beyond.

Because of these elements, the necklace forms a biography of the culture of its wearers. Who were they in contact with, who did they trade with, what materials made an appearance? Nylon fishing line, for example, has been in use since the 1960s to string necklaces with – it’s not necessarily a sign of modern stringing.

And that brings me to another aspect of restringing: the composition of a necklace.

Coral and amber Draa Valley necklace

Restringing ethnic jewellery: composition

There is, generally speaking, a set of standards within a culture as to what a necklace is supposed to look like.  It’s a ‘type’ of necklace that is specific to a particular group, tribe, region etc. The individual components may vary, but the overall lay-out remains the same.

Over time, these compositions change, too: fashion will always play a part in how ethnic necklaces are created. The next generation always wants to do things a little differently, and these changes are visible in small or large details.

Looking at old photographs can be very helpful here (bearing in mind the complications these may bring – read more about that here). Looking at jewellery that has with certainty been collected before a particular date, or that has been in a family for generations, is also very helpful (you did not really think you were getting an article without me pointing out the importance of provenance, did you…?).

Restringing ethnic jewellery: our coloured view

So, the jewellery that we see, is the end result of years of threads breaking, fashions changing, beads bought, silver traded for cash, new elements acquired, dividing up larger necklace among kids…there is a depth of life behind these that is just amazing.

But these last incarnations are the ones that get published in jewellery books, shown in exhibitions and presented online. And that is often when they ‘freeze’: they are taken out of their living context, shown as beautiful objects in their own right, and become the main sources for studying jewellery.

The last composition we see, can’t readily be used to unequivocally establish that this is how a piece of jewellery always is ‘supposed’ to look. ⁠Not on the level of ‘but there are supposed to be three blue beads here’, anyway. But what they are very useful for, is establishing what the predilections of the time were, what the overall design is and which materials were in use.

Restringing ethnic jewellery: how is a piece presented to you?

By now, I suppose it will be clear that restringing is standard practice. But I’m guessing that is not what you want to know…because ‘original stringing’ often is connected to a form of authenticity. ‘This is the real deal’, that sort of thing. A restrung necklace however, can be just as real.

The thing to be aware of is how a necklace is presented to you. I have seen pieces presented as ‘19th century on original stringing’, but including beads that did not exist in the 19th century.

There is a fine line between original restringing, and modern compositions made to look old. What you really want to know, is the difference between the two.

Restringing ethnic jewellery: how to check for restringing

Restringing is the norm, not the exception. But how to see if you’re looking at an actually old piece, or a new one made to look original? Here are five tips:

1 – You will need to be aware of styles and types worn by the particular people the piece is from, and the timeframe it is supposed to be from. There’s no escaping that. Look at the overall composition carefully;

2 – Next, zoom in and see if the individual materials used match with that timeframe. Again, it’s not uncommon, for example, for plastic beads to find their way into an incarnation of a necklace, but when this is presented to you as ’19th century, never altered’ that is cause for concern;

3 – Zoom in a little further and check if the thread has been artificially aged: inspect the space between the beads and in the bead openings. Do note however that when a necklace is densely strung, the thread may remain cleaner than the rest;

4- Inspect the closure. This is often altered over time to allow for easier wearing. Here again, it helps to be aware of how these pieces were fastened. A loop-and-knot/bead/coin closure can be, but is not always the original way of fastening a necklace (and please remember that nothing is easier to pick up a stray coin to use – coins do not automatically date a piece of jewellery). S-hooks almost always indicate restringing.

5- Read the description carefully, if it concerns a necklace on offer. Does it say ‘in the style of’ or ‘based on’ or ‘composed of’? That indicates restringing or even a design creation by the seller.

And there is nothing wrong with that, by the way! In fact, all of my ethnic Dutch necklaces have been restrung, for example – I don’t want them to break when I wear them. Also the replacement of closures with S-hooks is nothing dramatic, and in fact adapts the necklace to a new stage in its life where it is wearable again.

Just as long as one is transparent about what is simply restringing, and what is altering (or even designing) the composition itself.

Restringing ethnic jewellery: living jewellery

Jewellery is not frozen in time, but grows old with us, and like us, changes appearances along the way. We see its last identity as it were, and it’s up to us to be aware there have been multiple lives before that!⁠ Restringing is normal. In that light I would suggest to replace ‘on original stringing’ with ‘on an original stringing‘ – it does do more justice to the many lives a necklace has had.

This article will continue with an article on how to spot alterations in ethnic jewellery, and an article on what to think of before you start restringing necklaces that are still on an original stringing – stay tuned!

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References

[1] This practice was shared with me by mrs. Alix Normandeau.

Would you like to quote this article? Please do! Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only.