An Islamic fantasia by authentic craftsmen
By Randy Kennedy | New York Times | Updated: 2011-03-27 07:29
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As part of the Met's ambitious overhaul of its Islamic galleries, a Moroccan crew has been creating a medieval Maghrebi-Andalusian-style courtyard. Below, artisans use designs that have been preserved for generations. Photographs by Ruth Fremson / The New York Times |
In the spring of 2009, in a basement workshop in Fez, Morocco, a young curator from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art sat among a group of artisans �?workers in traditional North African tile, plaster and wood ornament whose roots in the trade stretched back seven generations. She asked the company's chief executive why the museum should enlist them for an unusual mission.
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