Image: Fes marinid house by Alfred Bel (1919) from Golvin et al - facade drawing only

Description: Drawing of a courtyard facade in a 14th-century Marinid-era house in Fes, documented by Alfred Bel in 1914 before its demolition soon after. Fragments of its decoration are kept at the Dar Batha museum today. Description (summarized from Marçais 1954 and Revault et al 1985): The drawing shows a two-story gallery on one side of the house's central courtyard (wast ad-dar). On both levels the gallery has a large central opening aligned with a doorway to one of the rooms around the courtyard, and two narrow openings on the sides. On the first level the central opening is topped by corbelled wooden lintels which were richly carved, like in Marinid madrasas of the same period. The side arches were framed by bands of carved epigraphic decoration (in Maghrebi script) and the pannels above the arches are covered in stucco decoration with a sebka pattern, again similar to Marinid madrasas. Two small windows above the doors allowed light from the courtyard to enter the room behind. On the second level the main and side arches are again carved with similar decoration (presumably in stucco though the sources aren't clear if it's still in stucco or wood).
Title: Fes marinid house by Alfred Bel (1919) from Golvin et al - facade drawing only
Credit: Original publication: Bel, Alfred (1919). "Inscriptions arabes de Fès, une maison privée du xive siècle". Paris. As the author died over 70 years ago, copyright (if applicable) has expired on these drawings. The drawing and floor plan have since been published in other books including Marçais (1954) "L'architecture musulmane d'Occident" (p. 313-314), and Revault, Golvin, and Ali (1985) "Palais et demeures de Fès. Vol I: Époques mérinde et saadienne (XIVe-XVIIe siècles)". This image was extracted from the latter publication, which is available online at: http://books.openedition.org/iremam/2303 (See chapter: "Demeures de Fès (xive-xviie siècles)".)
Author: Alfred Bel (1873–1945)
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication
License: CC0
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en
Attribution Required?: No