Object Name: Coat
Place of Origin: Bukhara, Uzbekistan, purchased in Israel
Date: Late 19th century
Materials Used: Imported European silk brocade, with local silk ikat lining
Dimensions: H: 137.0 cm, W: 182.0 cm (H: 53.9 in, W: 71.6 in)
Credit line and Accession Number: University of California Expedition sponsored by the Ford Foundation. X67.2568

There is no record of how this coat came to be for sale in a market in Jerusalem. It may have been brought to Palestine by an owner seeking to avoid czarist domination in Uzbekistan prior to 1917, or it may have arrived when a second wave of Jewish migrants left Soviet-controlled Uzbekistan in the 1920s and 1930s. It is also possible that the coat was brought out of Uzbekistan by traders in the 1960s when a market for Jewish ”ethnographica” developed in Israel.

Gallery text, Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives, 2006