Arab Gallery

View of the fort at al-'Ain from the courtyard, showing wind tower

View of the fort at al-'Ain from the courtyard, showing wind tower.One of the many forts belonging to the al- Nahyan family, the rulers of Abu Dhabi, who controlled the oasis since the mid-nineteenth century. Country of Origin: United Arab Emirates. Culture: Islamic. Date/Period: 1996. Credit Line: Werner Forman Archive. Location: 07

© Werner Forman Archive / Heritage-Images

Architectural decoration in the Alhambra, (1898). Creator: Unknown

Architectural decoration in the Alhambra, (1898). Moresque - Architectural Ornament - Spain is the country, where the Islamitic art found its purest and most beautiful development in the buildings of the Moorish kings, for instance, in the palace of Alhambra near Granada (13th and 14th century). Especially with the Moors, Mahomedan ornamentation reached its culminating point. Figs 2-10 represent mouldings and wall surfaces executed in stucco and painted...The Moorish artists knew how to produce wonderful effects by artfully interlacing and twisting the geometrical and arabesque ornaments...we find two...and sometimes even three systems of ornaments...worked into each other...'. Plate 28 from "The Historic Styles of Ornament" translated from the German of H. Dolmetsch. [B.T. Batford, London, 1898]

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images

War in Morocco - Arab and Moorish cavalry, 1844. Creator: Unknown

War in Morocco - Arab and Moorish cavalry, 1844. The Emperor of Morocco has not a part in his dominions that might not be taken by a frigate and two bomb-vessels in less than four hours. His army is a farce, and their mode of warfare perfectly childish...The ordnance is dangerously useless...the Emperor could at no time gather or hold together 100,000 fighting men, and these comprising a host of such ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-armed ragamuffins...From their bigoted habit of excluding from their country all Europeans, and from the little experience they have gathered of European war tactics, it will be some years...before they will be able to make any stand against the French...The annexed engraving will convey an idea of the Arab cavalry, the Emperor's chief forces, against whom the French troops have to contend'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol I

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images