“Depictions of women in Egyptian art occasionally feature garments decorated with an overall lozenge pattern. This design is believed to represent beadwork, which was either sewn onto a linen dress or worked into a separate net worn over the linen. This beadnet dress is the earliest surviving example of such a garment. It has been painstakingly reassembled from approximately seven thousand beads found in an undisturbed burial of a female contemporary of King Khufu. Although their string had disintegrated, a few beads still lay in their original pattern on and around the mummy, permitting an accurate reconstruction. The color of the beads has faded, but the beadnet was originally blue and blue green in imitation of lapis lazuli and turquoise.” —Museum of Fine Arts Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts Boston has two reconstructed beadnet dresses. Other dresses have been found.
Scholar Justine De Young in an article in the Fashion History Timeline, discusses how such dresses may have been worn. She offers a quote from the discoverer of a similar gown, Guy Brunton in 1923-24, now in the collection of the Petrie Museum in London, '“Guy Brunton commented that the dress reminds us of the story of King Sneferu going on a sailing trip on the palace lake, recorded on a papyrus dating from around 1800 BCE. The King gets twenty young women to row a boat and, to relieve his boredom, orders: ‘Let there be brought to me 20 women with the shapeliest bodies, breasts and braids, who have not yet given birth. And let there be brought to me 20 nets. Give those nets to these women in place of their clothes!’ The point of the story is that the behaviour of the King is outrageous rather than normal, but this tale has been used to make the bead-net dress into an erotic and exotic garment.”
When I entered the gallery in Boston I was struck by the sensous elegance of the garment—incredible. Justine De Young explains, referring to references, that the dresses may have been worn on the nude body or as an overskirt, there is not scholarly consensus. De Young offers examples with depictions of beadnet dresses in Egyptian art.
In my experience I cannot recall a work of fashion that accentuates the feminine form with more beauty. Perhaps it is in part the presentation. The care of the dress as an appreciated article of art in a museum, with meticulous conservation, is outstanding.
by Drew Burgess
Drew Burgess is an art professor at the College of Alameda of the Peralta Community College District of California.
Works Cited: Justine De Young, “Beadnet Dress”, Fashion History Timeline, August 10, 2018, accessed June 9, 2025, https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/beadnet-dress/
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Beadnet Dress, Egyptian Old Kingdom, 2551-2528 B.C., Faience, 44 x 113cm, accessed June 9, 2025, https://collections.mfa.org/objects/146531
Cite this page: Drew Burgess, “Egyptian Beadnet Dress”, June 9, 2025, https://www.drewburgess.art/museum-visits/2025/6/9/egyptian-beadnet-dress