tunisian crafts 2

Leather And Leather Working

The formerly flourishing trades of leather, include the art of saddlery and the embroidery on leather, the manufacture of the traditional shoe (balgha) and various other utility purposes in leather working. The saddlery of pageantry trônait at the top of the trades of leather. The saddle with its varieties of embroidery, constituted the chief of work of the craft industry of leather. Forming until the beginning of our century one of the most important corporations of the souks of the médina, the saddlers animated in Tunis the gravers of the souk sarrajines. The other principal corporation of the craftsmen of leather was that of the “balgagias” which, grouped in the souks of the same name made the male and female Turkish slippers. The “balgha” knew its period ostentation when it was the single shoe, of interior and exit, used by the men and the women of all the social classes as well by the townsmen as the rural ones. In addition to the balgha, the craftsmen manufactured other kinds of Turkish slippers such as Besmaq, Rihya and Kontra.  The Turkish slippers of men are generally of the natural color of leather. Those of the women in their majority are embroidered with money and gold, cotton, silk wire with floral reasons or crescents. The development of the lifestyles and transport, gradually, brought the craftsmen of leather to a happy reconversion. Currently, in the gravers of the souks, the craftsmen devote themselves more and more to the manufacture of products of leather working; satchels, portfolios of schoolboys, leather basket, belts, carries sheets, trimmings of offices, boxes, cushions, poufs and purposes decorative. These purposes are often stamped by geometrical reasons. The souk of the “Balghajiya” is today the last and the single souk which still keeps its specialization in spite of the generalization of the modern shoe. The rehabilitation of the port of the traditional dress is at the origin of the promptness of the souk. The balgha being an essential accessory for the traditional costume. Iron Made Handicrafts WROUGHT IRON The Tunisian wrought iron is especially inspired by the manufacture of Moroccan and Spanish wrought iron (Andalusians). The various reasons which decorate grids, doors, windows, transoms of Souks, and brackets, are of Arab, Spanish and Portuguese inspiration.  The reasons for filling are composed of irons in forms of C and S. Generally, the grids of the windows and the doors are composed of a round iron framework of 8 to 10 mm diameter, and round iron decorative reasons of 5 mm, fixed at the framework and connected to each other by round or flat iron hoops from 3 to 4 mm thickness. More rarely the squares and the flats were employed in these compositions, and only in ironwork inspired by the contributions Spanish and Portuguese or in those of modern times. Other elements referring to the building, the such stops, the entries of locks, the strap hinges, and the “Khomsas” (specifically Arab elements which represent a hand and which according to the legends protect from the evil eye). The wrought iron or cut out, bronze and copper engraved, engraved or cut out are frequently employed for the execution of these accessories of doors. Nowadays wrought iron at conquered other horizons that of the world of the building, it with crossed the universe of decoration as an approval for other craft industries such blown glass, where he becomes an integral part in manufacture of luminaries (glosses, lamps and brackets), of candlesticks and other decorative purposes. COPPER  It is at the XVIIIème century that the craft industry of copper knew its golden age in Tunisia, in particular in the big cities (Tunis, Sfax, Kairouan). The purposes out of copper are an important component of the trousseau of married in the town families until the XX century half. Today, chiselling spreads and embellishes incrustations of money wire, Red copper cauldrons and pots apparent keeping the traces of the hammering, and which one uses as mask pots. Following the example ceramics, vases with the most varied forms such braziers, the candy boxes, the vases with flowers, are covered with a vitreous enamel to the hot colors like the green, the mauve and the honey, which lets show through a schematized floral decoration.