Important Pair Of Wedding Lamps, Painted Terracotta, Kabylie, Algeria, 1900 - 1930, Museum

Important Pair of wedding lamps (extremely rare in pair, even alone) Kabilie, northern Algeria, east of Algiers around 1900-1920, collected by the former owner.
Model with twelve candles, in very good used condition, slight chips which do not spoil these superb artifacts of Kabyle life.
On the occasion of her marriage, the woman brings an earthen lamp that will never leave the house.
We are talking here about the commonly used lamp which will be used to light the fire and which will be placed near the baby's cradle.
On the occasion of her marriage, the procession also brought the particular lamp with five, seven or nine spouts, probably representing the ancestors of the bride.
The ceremony is called "Tawsa" It was only lit in special circumstances: first night in the nuptial chamber, tracing of the first furrow at the beginning of plowing...
It is customary to get married, at plowing time until 'at the end of the fig season, since time immemorial, a period called "iwejjiben", a gate of the year in the Amazigh calendar.
All these lamps are carefully decorated with motifs whose symbolism has been studied: the diamond shape for the man, the partridge for the woman, the egg for fertility...
But isn't there on some lamps some something obvious (so obvious that no one talks about it): an exclusively masculine attribute! See this one and imagine the words of the potters when they kneaded the clay, when they added these suggestive symbols, when they met with the women of the village before the party...
And what about the fiancée who discovered ( in hidden words) what her husband had to offer her in exchange for all the gifts of the dowry?
This type of lamp therefore had an essential initiatory use.
Because according to the words collected by Henri GENEVOIS, it is only "shortly before his marriage that one of his friends, married, who dares to speak to him freely, talks to the bride about what awaits her in order to remove all false fear from her. and shyness.
" Until then, for her "the little brother or the little sister was the baby that God and the blessed Angels had given to her mother"
To the questions she had asked, she had not been answered out of modesty and if she had any acquaintances, she got them from the other little girls (just as her future husband got his from his friends).
The "outside lamp" here is a very mysterious terminology.
By allusion, it is the man who is thus designated! Its domain is the outdoors! His role, honor!
But what happens when the "outdoor lamp" enters the intimacy of the Kabyle house?
The woman lights the fire there and, as in all latitudes, the "miracle of life" occurs! And soon a child grows up in his mother's womb with the concern: "How will he get out of it?"
Question that we had already asked ourselves by putting the "Wedding Lamp" to cook in the fire revealed.
We are talking here about a time when the young man had confidence in his parents who only wanted him well by choosing his fiancée themselves. … But is that time so far away?
Or have things reversed ? Currently, in some families, would it not be the parents of the young girl who impose their choice ?
A wedding lamp model is present at the Grand-Est Museum in Saint Dizier (52)
Dimensions: length: 47.5 cm each, Height: 38.5 cm each, depth: 14.5 cm each, weight: 3615 g and 3583 gr, or 7198 gr for the pair.
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