La Medina — Tétouan V

 

Judith Rothchild

  1950 - PRESENT (biography)

2006  

mezzotint 

5 7/8 x 7 13/16" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

8 of 20  

titled in pencil, lower center margin; bears blindstamp of Institut Francais Tanger Tetouan in lower right corner of the paper 

 

ivory wove Hahnemuhle 

published 

artist 

19297 

$425.00 

The archways and plaster walls of a "medina" quarter - a walled, maze-like district or neighborhood - in Tétouan, a port city in northern Morocco. It's position opposite the Straits of Gibralter made Tétouan the main hub of contact between North Africa and Europe, in particular Anadlusia and Morocco, and therefor the first major link between Arab and Spanish culture. It is considered the most intact and unchanged ancient medina in Northern Africa and retains the architectural influences of the late medieval Muslim Occident. Today it is home to the renowned Royal Artisan School (Dar Sanaa), and the National Institute of Fine Arts.

Here, Judith Rothchild depicts a shadowy passageway within the medina, its archways, doorways, and path embelmatic of Islamic and Spanish cultural confluence. her mezzotint technique captures the worn, smoothed edges of the ancient plaster walls.