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Fibula
unknown - Enlarge image
Fibula
- Place of origin:
Algeria (made)
- Date:
1800-1893 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Silver, enamel, coral
- Museum number:
666-1893
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This silver shoulder brooch would have been worn by Kabyle women in the first half of the nineteenth century to affix their robes. The Kabyles are a Berber people from the Atlas mountains in North Eastern Algeria. The front and back are decorated with a pattern of silver wire forming spaces filled with enamel or coral. To one side of the brooch is a fixed pin with an open ring that would have been used to attach the brooch. A small chain would have been attached to the movable ring for suspending an amulet case.
This brooch was probably made by a Jewish silversmith. In the late fifteenth century many Jewish people immigrated to North Africa. The Jewish population dominated the silversmithing profession and bought with them many new jewellery techniques (such as enamelling) which they handed down from generation to generation.
