Coronet for a Sterntikhl, Central Europe: 19th Century

Embroidered gold and gold-wrapped thread, pearls, backed on silk. (9 ½ x 6 in.; 240 x 155 mm).

The sterntikhl (Yiddish for “forehead kerchief”) is a lavishly decorated traditional head covering worn during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by married Jewish women in Eastern Europe on the Sabbath and festivals. Embellished with pearls and precious stones, it served as a reflection of a family’s fortune. According to early accounts, affluent women would sometimes bestow a pearl or precious stone from their own sterntikhls to help adorn those worn by newly-married, though less prosperous, brides. Historically worn by both Hasidic and non-Hasidic women, since the last century only a small number of Hasidic women maintain the tradition of wearing a sterntikhl. Only a very few early examples of this distinctive hand-made head covering remain extant. 

Literature: Esther Juhasz, ed., The Jewish Wardrobe: From the Collection of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2012, pp. 116-117 and 324; A World Apart Next Door: Glimpses into the Life of Hassidic Jews, Jerusalem, 2012, pp. 142-143.