Fassi Ceramics

From the dawn of its founding at the beginning of the 13th century, the city of Fes soon created a dynamic fusion between Eastern and Western Muslims. The main cities of this happy synthesis went b the names of Kairouan and cordoba. You can still find on their two riverbanks such prestigious monuments as the mosques of the Qaraouiyin and the Andalous.

Early on these population centers were able to create one of the most original cities of the middle Ages and a dynastic capital that would survive until the beginning of the 20th century would witness the birth and flourishing of these arts and crafts and would become an artiste nursery without precedent.
Regarding ceramics, for example, documents dating from the 13th century attest to the exis tence of 180 pottery workshops with their own quarter « near the walls. » The most reliable tra ces,howeuer, remain the 14th century archictural earthenware panels preserved in the Merinidian medersas or religious school and some ether dwellings of the era.

If this golden age has not left an furniture pieces, the abundant 13th and 14th centuries has preserved specimens for study which have revealed a technical mastery and an original aesthetic Above all you recognize it through their decorative bipolarity by the combing ceramic blues and ceramic polychromes. like the dutch city of Delf fez is well known for the. blue of its earthenware it is a light blue tint with metallic reflections using floral and geometric designs all over the base and the edges of plates (ghtar) or emphasizing the roundess of vases (ghorraf), jars (khabia or tureens (jabbana).

At the start of the 20th century, the archaeologist Alfred Bell announced that he had discovered in Fes itself traces that gave evidence of a forgotten technique that bad used local minerals. A large plate from the collection of the Dar-Bath Museum in Fes and dated from 1274 the hegira or 1858 AD bore this blue tint and thus proved to be in this same decorative tradition that had been forgotten. Later on, earthenware potters used this more compact . Cobalt blue thanks to a small powder imported from England. The main tints used by Fassi ceramists are, other than yelow, greens and blue,some brown that to edge the designs. brown is an iron oxide called « Moghnassiya. » has the color of a raisin (zbib) and serves as well to Cover small surfaces and to decorate the edges of hachares plates.

The yellou) (dhabi for golden) is a limonite or hematite brown mixed with ashes and sifica, Covering large sur faces, it enhances ail objects. The green is a copper oxide that is ground and mixed with water. With the yellow, it is the base of the original polychromatic colors of the Fes ceramists.

Finally, some red dots (a mini mum ca lied « zerqtone ») were use to cover certain faults in the baking or in the enameling. it became 50 esteemed that today it makes up an integral part of the polychrome.
The shapes, utilitarian or ornamental, are flat, round or elongated. Among the flat ceramic are the enor mous dishes for couscous catled « Mokhfiya; » smaller are plates called depending upon their edges, « ghtar » or « sahn. The pitchers (ghorraf) for orange flouwer water (Matreb) or oil (betta) and the targer jars (khabiya) are included among the elongated shapes. Finally the tureens (jab bana) and bowts (zlafa) make up the round shapes.