Moroccan textile embroidery

Moroccan textile embroidery is a resplendent craft tradition born of the desire to create a refined backdrop to everyday life. The embroideries-the product of patience, perseverance, and rigor-use natural silk thread in radiant colors such as flame yellow or old gold, raspberry red, sky blue, or electric violet on muslin, lawn, linen, cotton, or silk. The embroidered pieces range from practical items for the home such as curtains, bed covers, tablecloths, and handtowels, to clothing accessories such as belts, scarves, and shawls. The decorative embroidery serves also as a reinforcement to prevent fragile fabrics from fraying, and as a showcase for a young woman's talent with a needle.

Isabelle Denamur takes us on a tour of Morocco : from the ancient city of Fez to the Andalusian-influenced Tétouan, and from the bustling capital of Rabat to the town of Azemmour, slumbering beside the ocean, its small white houses and splendid gardens nestled within ocher-colored ramparts. Within each city a unique embroidery art form has developed, from designs based on Byzantine bestiary to floral motifs of tulips, hyacinths, and wild roses, and from abstract patterns in a multitude of bright colors to motifs reminiscent of manuscript illuminations and mosaics.

Moroccan Textile Embroidery features over a hundred exceptional pieces of embroidery, along with rare photographs and paintings of Moroccan life that place this superb craftwork in its historical context. It aims to be a complete resource, containing detailed references to apprenticeship methods, techniques, and materials, and above all providing an eloquent testimony to the sophisticated artistic tastes of a society where beauty and practicality go hand in hand.