Magnificent Glawi

Most secret Moroccan houses can hide true wonders, like this door found in a small room of an old house in the Medina of Ouarzazate, near the kasbah of Taourirt.

Both sides are richly decorated, but in a different way. Which side was for the inner of the room ? Most certainly the lighter one, which still has its original silver locker. Like many Moroccan doors, they are quite narrow, only 54 cm wide for each side (the lobbies were quite narrow, specially over the patio) and high (1m90). That fitted rooms built to protect people from heat and sun.

Patterns are extraordinary well conserved, which is normal with traditionnal pigment.

Details are clearly showing it :

Green is mint, blue with indigo, yellow with safran, red with cocheinal insect or madder. The normal paint did not resist so wel and shows red wood under, which could be ceddar wood. I find specially attractive the slight irregularity of the pattern. It was traced on the door by the Maalem with a compass, planned down in case of mistake, but there was always so small differences at the end.

Flowers can hint that the room was for women. Maybe the Favorite's room ? Or one occupied by a spouse and her children ? The frame of the rose is based on the six points star, so called Magen or Salomons Sceal, which was used as a powerful protection symbol for a long time in Morocco. (Actually, it was even on the flag of some sultans. The Alawites had a plain red flag, and the current five points star was added under the Protectorate, to differentiate the national flag from some used by other tribes).

Instead of large panels, the other side is divided in small rectangular cases. Here again we see a floral decoration, somehow different from the usual geometrical and abstract decorations. The main colors are warm, red and yellow, cochineal and saffron. The flowers look like in a garden, the lines are traced at first, in black, and then the colors are appllied with a stencil.

Just imagine this ancient door in the kasbah, probably on the first floor, opening onto the inner patio. The beauty of this deep warm colors in harmony with the adobe walls, the inner side matching some white and blue ceramics.
The silver locker closes on these mysteries.

And when you compare to this door, which is still in Telouet, another kasbah of the Glawis, the similarities between the patterns, and even the wood underneath is striking.