Morocco's Tribeswomen See Facial Tattoo Tradition Fade

Amazigh women pose for a picture in the village of Imilchil in central Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on September on August 19, 2024. Agence France-Presse
Amazigh women pose for a picture in the village of Imilchil in central Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on September on August 19, 2024. Agence France-Presse
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Morocco's Tribeswomen See Facial Tattoo Tradition Fade

Amazigh women pose for a picture in the village of Imilchil in central Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on September on August 19, 2024. Agence France-Presse
Amazigh women pose for a picture in the village of Imilchil in central Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on September on August 19, 2024. Agence France-Presse

As a young girl growing up in the Atlas mountains, Hannou Mouloud's family took her to have her chin tattooed with the cherished lines that generations of Moroccan Amazigh tribeswomen wore.
"When I was six, they told me tattoos were pretty adornments," recalled the 67-year-old from Imilchil village of the once-common practice among women in North Africa's Amazigh groups, AFP reported.
Long referred to as Berbers, many tribespeople from the area prefer to be called Amazigh, or Imazighen, which means "free people".
Today, like in many of the Indigenous cultures across the world where facial tattoos were long prevalent, the practice has largely faded.
Many attribute the near-disappearance of facial tattoos to Morocco's changing religious attitudes in recent decades, with interpretations of Islam where inked skin and other body modifications like piercings are prohibited taking hold.
"We would use charcoal to draw the designs on our faces, then a woman would prick the drawing with a needle until blood came out," Mouloud told AFP, adding that they would rub the wound daily with a chewed green herb to deepen the tattoo's color.
The markings vary in design between the minority's tribes and were used to signify the wearer's origin while offering beauty and protection.
Being tattooed would hurt, said Hannou Ait Mjane, 71, and "we couldn't hold back our tears" but it "remains a tradition that our ancestors passed down to us".
Fundamentalism
Morocco has the largest Amazigh population in North Africa, with Tamazight, the community's language, recognised as an official language alongside Arabic.
According to the most recent census in 2014, more than a quarter of Morocco's 35 million inhabitants speak at least one dialect -- Tarifit, Tamazight or Tachelhit.
Abdelouahed Finigue, a geography teacher and researcher from Imilchil, told AFP that women often had their chins, foreheads or hands tattooed.
The designs held different meanings to the different communities.
"The woman, through her tattoos, expresses her beauty and her value as an individual independent of the man," he said, explaining what the different shapes can mean.
"The circle, for example, represents the universe and beauty, just like the moon and the sun which occupied an important place in local rites," he said.
But changing religious trends means fewer women are getting inked.
Bassou Oujabbour, member of local development association AKHIAM, said women with the markings have faced social pressure.
"Fundamentalists sometimes describe tattooing as the devil's book or as the first thing to be burned on the human body," he said.
"Some women even removed the tattoos long after getting them for fear of punishment after death."



Picasso on a Plate: Unseen Ceramics Up for Auction

Artworks by Pablo Picasso are pictured during the media preview of 'Picasso for Asia: A Conversation' at M+ in Hong Kong. May JAMES / AFP
Artworks by Pablo Picasso are pictured during the media preview of 'Picasso for Asia: A Conversation' at M+ in Hong Kong. May JAMES / AFP
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Picasso on a Plate: Unseen Ceramics Up for Auction

Artworks by Pablo Picasso are pictured during the media preview of 'Picasso for Asia: A Conversation' at M+ in Hong Kong. May JAMES / AFP
Artworks by Pablo Picasso are pictured during the media preview of 'Picasso for Asia: A Conversation' at M+ in Hong Kong. May JAMES / AFP

A clutch of one-off and hitherto unseen ceramic plates and dishes by Pablo Picasso are going under the hammer in Geneva on June 19.

Emblematic motifs from Picasso's artistic universe -- pigeons, fish, a goat, a bull, and a bird adorn the colorful plates and dishes, AFP said.

"It's a truly exceptional collection. The plates and dishes we have here are real Picasso works," Bernard Piguet, director of the Piguet auction house in Geneva, told AFP.

"These unique pieces belonged to Picasso's estate, and in the early 1980s, his heirs gave them to one of their friends," he said.

The close friend, a French art lover whose name has not been revealed, kept them until his death. His heirs have decided to put the ceramics up for sale.

Made between 1947 and 1963 in the Madoura workshop in Vallauris on the southeast French coast, the ceramic artworks are being exhibited to the general public for the first time ahead of Thursday's auction.

'Reasonable' prices

The seven pieces are being sold in separate lots.

Two large platters decorated with pigeons are both expected to fetch between 30,000 and 50,000 Swiss francs ($37,000-$61,500).

A third plate depicting three blue, pink, and brick-colored fish on a white background, resembling a child's drawing, is estimated at 20,000 to 30,000 francs.

A thin brick, titled "Head of a Bearded Man", and painted with ceramic pastels in yellow, white, garnet, brown, blue orange and green, has the same estimate.

Glazed on a painted background in shades of grey, brown, and black, a terracotta plate depicting a goat's head bears the prestigious stamp "Original Picasso print" on the back. It is valued at 20,000-30,000 francs.

The two others feature a bull on a hexagonal terracotta tile (15,000-20,000 francs), and a stylized bird on a plate painted in black and white (15,000-25,000 francs).

"It's a lot," Piguet said of the price. "But don't forget that these are works of art in their own right and unique pieces" without replicas.

"If you step back from Picasso's work and his drawings, which are becoming practically unaffordable today, you have here original works by Picasso that command a reasonable estimate."

New outlet

Picasso was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. The prolific Spanish painter died in 1973, aged 91.

He created thousands of plates, platters, vases, pitchers, and other earthenware utensils in the Madoura ceramics studio, run by the pottery couple Georges and Suzanne Ramie.

After World War II, "Picasso was already an internationally-renowned artist," said Adeline Bisch Balerna, head of paintings and sculptures at Piguet.

"He had already opened up a huge number of avenues for all artists; the great, well-known works had been created, and he was seeking new means of expression for his art."

Picasso would visit the Madoura studio, meet Georges Ranie, and be "captivated by all the possibilities offered" by this new artistic outlet, she explained.

Piguet is also auctioning two Picasso works "never before seen on the art market", from the same family friend's collection: "Serenade" (1919), an Indian ink and watercolor painting estimated at 20,000-30,000 francs, and the pencil drawing "Famille balzacienne" (1962), valued at 80,000-120,000 francs.

Unseen Klein

Meanwhile the contemporary art in Thursday's sale includes one of French artist Yves Klein's first blue monochromes, in what is its first appearance on the art market, according to Piguet auction house.

From 1959, "Monochrome bleu sans titre (IKB 328)", estimated at 100,000-150,000 francs, is painted in International Klein Blue, the deep blue hue developed by the artist himself.

"In daylight, it really has this luminous blue, this completely fascinating Klein blue. And when you put it indoors, you see it as a dark blue, almost midnight blue," said Bernard Piguet.

Klein died in 1962 aged 34, following a series of heart attacks.

The work comes from the collection of the Swiss artist couple Muriel and Gerald Minkoff, who liked to exchange their works with their contemporaries.

It was discovered by their successors in their Geneva apartment, according to Piguet.