Bijoux du Maroc

In order to exist, in the eyes of others as well as in one’s own, to protect oneself from the influences of the invisible, adornment has appeared as a panacea; among the various solutions found throughout space to this universal need, none could be more exemplary than those presented to us by the beautiful work of Marie-Rose Rabaté devoted to Jewels of Morocco.

Far from the tedious typology and the Byzantine analysis of forms and symbols, the author gives us a sober description announced by the title, based on an exhaustive collection of documents collected with the greatest respect for Moroccan culture and traditions, and the most scrupulous scientific concern.

The importance of the social and psychological role of jewelry is no longer to be mentioned. But here, to convince oneself, only look straight at this Bou Izakarn’s woman, at the decline of her maturity, invested with the strength of her many finery, the silver cones of the isni matched with the deep scratch of the wrinkles of the forehead like so many aggressive hornbills, or the young woman of Goulmima, grave and serene, whose regular face expands laterally, in the manner of the “meninas” of Velasquez, with heavy volumes of hair plated of stepped silver pendants.
Once received the shock of the meeting, each of the components of such complex and flamboyant jewels raises a question. M.-R. Rabaté gives us all the keys for their analysis and understanding; she had the concern to follow step by step the becoming of a jewel, from the black hole that serves as a workshop to its creator – artisan-artist – to the simple stand where it is proposed to a father in need of dower, and today to an attentive stranger.

The description of proven techniques, almost extinct, such as niellage or enamelling, the listing of jewelry used in each of the delimited regions, are not the least merits of the book.
Where we could see only the monotony of cleverly interwoven disks, the image restores the elegance of the silver flow that winds through one’s hair.