The Yousef Zoughbi photographic catalogue showcases his carved mother of pearl items produced in Bethlehem in the first half of the twentieth century. The contents of the catalogue can be categorised within three broad – though sometimes overlapping – categories: models of religious sites and Biblical scenes that are finely render, though typical of the genre; ‘Oriental’ furniture with inlays, particularly games tables; and a series of commissioned works that focus utilise Bethlehemite aesthetics for diplomatic purposes. This paper will focus on three examples of the latter examining the ways in which aesthetics of classicism, Orientalism and Neo-Byzantinism are interwoven and fused within the vocabulary of Bethlehem mother of pearl carving. In doings so it will consider the ways in which Palestinian artisanship was mobilised as a mode cultural diplomacy and nationalist legitimation through transnational rubrics of Christianity. It will focus on three case studies of commissions, a work for King Faroukh in Egypt, another for Mussolini in Italy and third for the US government, now held in Washington DC. It will address each of these through the complex stylistic encoding of different aesthetics, considering the complexities of various visualities employed and their associations with different modes of nation-building. As a marketing strategy, the objects depicted in the album rely on the sanctity of production in the ‘Holy Land’ as a selling point. This paper questions the motivation for such commissions and how their production mobilised nationalist legitimation in the production of these objects.