KS’s literary post. Ep 8. “Gold ornaments from Morocco, History of women, symbols and love”, by Zineb Zniber and Wafa Méziou, or the private collections finally revealed

This large-format coffee table book written by an inveterate collector and enthusiast of ornaments and jewelry, Zineb Zniber and Wafa Méziou, today presents to the general public 200 works from private collections and museums, with the successful ambition of taking us on a journey into the intimate history of these feminine ceremonial objects transmitted over the centuries.

The 200 Moroccan ornaments and jewelry brought together in this 296-page beau-book belongs to several private collections and museums, many of which are being shown to the general public for the first time, covering in particular the personal collections of one of the authors of this work, Zineb Zniber, Maha Daoudi, Khalid El Gharib and La Galerie 38, to which funds from the Jaén Museum (Spain) and Marcelin Flandrin held by the Banque Populaire Foundation have been added. This plurality of origins of the jewelry presented today is a guarantee of variety, with sometimes beautiful and complex designs, sumptuous works that whisper in the ear: “All these masterpieces of goldsmithing were made by Jewish or Muslim men. All were worn by Jewish or Muslim women. All were natives of this beautiful Moroccan land. All were born of a mother, within the same Motherland. All share this national and universal fraternity” (p.9). This great journey is segmented into five stages: head adornments, bust adornments, limb adornments, Khmissa and daily gold. But we are pleased to discover intimate texts by the two authors, included in the introduction to certain chapters, written like stories, around ten short stories with female characters and dialogues which take us back in time, particularly to the 19th and 20th centuries. A rich and ancient history like a thread of identity of feminine beauty, sometimes minimalist or on the contrary baroque, depending on the eras and the sensitivities of the mâalems who set their codes. “The symbol, to deliver itself to us, requires contemplation, work, silence. This mysterious reality can only be approached through the heart” (p.17), warn Wafa Méziou and Zineb Zniber who like to consider jewelry as a feminine allegory with its language and messages to be interpreted.