Collection Zaira et Marcel Mis, puis par descendance

Collection particulière belge, acquis en 2023

Anne-Marie Bouttiaux, Frieda Sorber, Anne van Cutsem, Costumes et textiles d'Afrique: des Berbères aux Zulu : collection Zaira et Marcel Mis, Milan, 2008, Cat. 11, pp. 28-29

This chest cover, embroidered on both sides in silk threads on a cotton ground, illustrates the refinement of nineteenth-century textile production in Rabat. Its decoration of a floral spray framed by lobed borders and vegetal garlands belongs to the ornamental vocabulary characteristic of Moroccan urban embroidery, where stylised floral motifs and rhythmic compositions reflect a balance between tradition and invention.

Such pieces, intended to adorn household furniture, form part of a broader corpus of furnishing textiles produced in Morocco’s urban centres, and testify to the importance attached to the embellishment of interior spaces.

Another chest cover, although with polychrome decoration, is in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, dated to around 1900 (2001.144). See also an example attributed to Rabat and dated to the nineteenth century, sold at Artcurial, Paris, 15 November 2022, lot 170.