#Alhambresque

[medievalpoc]

The Alhambra as a source of inspiration for Western architects in the nineteenth century is well known and has been thoroughly documented. But “alhambresque” style was not just an Orientalist exoticism in the West. It was also used in Muslim contexts, where the style was considered suitable for public buildings—the entrance to the former Ministry of Defense building in Istanbul, for example—as well as for royal pavilions and palace interiors. In this article I explore the use of the alhambresque style in non-Western contexts in the nineteenth century, where “alhambresque” came to mean something more than simply fashionable exoticism.

“Versions and Visions of the Alhambra in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman World", Anna McSweeney (SOAS, University of London) West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture. FULL TEXT ONLINE

[mod note] This article has some surprisingly accessible info on how terms like “Moorish” mean something completely different depending on the context in which they are used:

“Moorish” is also frequently used to describe the art from all periods of Islamic rule in North Africa and in Spain—it includes the style of the mosques of Córdoba and Kairouan, for example, with their distinctive horseshoe-shaped arches.

By contrast, the term “Alhambresque” refers specifically to the style of architecture, inspired largely by depictions of the Alhambra palace, that was popularized in the second half of the nineteenth century. The history of the use of the term makes this association with nineteenth-century versions of the Alhambra clear.

[Fig. 1.  Edward Petrovich Hau (1807–87), Interiors of the Winter Palace: The Bathroom of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, 1870. Watercolor. Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.]

It’s related to a problem I see sometimes, where people illustrate or conflate the “Moorish” occupation of parts of Europe, which happened c. 700-1400s, with Orientalist paintings from the 1890s like this one: