Berber Bride

Date

c. 1896

Description

Creator of the image: Josep Tapiró
Date of the image creation: c. 1896
Medium of the image: Watercolour on paper
Person depicted: An unknown Berber bride

The Berber bride is adorned with much jewellery and wearing intricately woven clothing as part of her ceremonial attire. She has small tattoos on her chin and between her eyebrows. Her eyes look towards the artist with a kind of distance, perhaps weary of the foreign artist, or perhaps weary of her upcoming wedding. Her mouth betrays this considered distance. It is slightly open, more so at the left, revealing slithers of her teeth. It expresses a something of a scepticism; perhaps a dash of distrust. Taken as a whole, her face portrays an enigmatic and ambivalent emotion, both thoughtful and striking.

Josep Tapiró (1836–1913), the painter of this image, was a Catalan artist with a close interest in Orientalism. After growing up in Catalonia, Tapiró lived in Madrid and Rome before settling in Tanger, Morocco, in 1877, where he lived out his days. This image, depicting a traditional Berber bride in full wedding regalia, is one of Tapiró’s best-known artworks. It demonstrates the mastery of his skill with watercolours, evident in the meticulous detail captured in the drawing. The watercolour is in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.

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