Moroccan "Kabyle" diadem

This piece was most likely made in Morocco. It is shown before its silver was polished up, but otherwise "as is". Ayis - here on "ethnic jewels" - has written why a piece with such silver flourishes and interlinked hinged panels was most probably made in Morocco. One has to imagine, I feel, that a Moroccan artist of great skill and artistry decided to make a spectacular and highly artistic diadem which is in effect something that combines Kabyle and Moroccan characteristics. This is not a "pure" article, but some sort of "hybrid". In truth, it does not look much like a Kabyle piece I have seen in any book, so it hardly aims to make something similar. What counts, I feel, is the aesthetic success and power. The vast majority of people seeing the piece, whether on a photo or in real life, see it as an exceptional object of beauty and craftmanship. I am grateful to Ayis, though, for what he has taught me about the piece. To me a piece made in Morocco is not inferior to one made in Algeria, and I like pieces which result from cultural interaction.

The discussion on this piece has probably been "done to death", and I am not posting it to elicit yet more, but simply because there may be people who haven't seen it yet, or who are keen enough to see it again. When we bought it we could not actually identify it from any book, but thought, as I suppose most western buyers would, that eventually it would confirmed to be a Kabyle piece, and we described it as such in *Ethnic Jewellery and Adornment*. Most people who see it for the first time and who are not specialists still immediately think "Kabyle". However, I must admit - and Truus agrees - that Ayis has made an excellent case for regarding the piece as Morocccan, and we would now certainly describe it as such if we had the chance again. We have at various times made plain to various people in various places that we now consider this to be of Moroccan manufacture. The piece continues to be greatly admired and liked, and not thought of as any less good because it has turned out to be something different from what we had expected, but we do believe that pieces should be accurately described, and thus are promoting the view that this is Moroccan, without any doubt. It is a very grand piece, the height being 19.2 cm including pendants, and the width (without straps) 33 cm. It was bought by an excellent and very experienced Australian collector in Quarzazate some decades ago (from a shop with many superlative objects, including our large Moroccan panel). We bought both pieces from this collector some years ago, along with some other very good pieces.

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Joost Daalder April 1, 2012 at 4:39am

The discussion on this piece has probably been "done to death", and I am not posting it to elicit yet more, but simply because there may be people who haven't seen it yet, or who are keen enough to see it again. When we bought it we could not actually identify it from any book, but thought, as I suppose most western buyers would, that eventually it would confirmed to be a Kabyle piece, and we described it as such in *Ethnic Jewellery and Adornment*. Most people who see it for the first time and who are not specialists still immediately think "Kabyle". However, I must admit - and Truus agrees - that Ayis has made an excellent case for regarding the piece as Morocccan, and we would now certainly describe it as such if we had the chance again. We have at various times made plain to various people in various places that we now consider this to be of Moroccan manufacture. The piece continues to be greatly admired and liked, and not thought of as any less good because it has turned out to be something different from what we had expected, but we do believe that pieces should be accurately described, and thus are promoting the view that this is Moroccan, without any doubt. It is a very grand piece, the height being 19.2 cm including pendants, and the width (without straps) 33 cm. It was bought by an excellent and very experienced Australian collector in Quarzazate some decades ago (from a shop with many superlative objects, including our large Moroccan panel). We bought both pieces from this collector some years ago, along with some other very good pieces.

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Moroccan "Kabyle" diadem

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