Fez Tannery — Chouara Leather Overview
849.00 $
The Chouara tannery in Fez’s medina photographed from the surrounding terrace viewpoints — the medieval dyeing vats in full colour, workers treading leather in the vivid pigment baths, the ancient craft unchanged.
Description
The Chouara tannery in Fez el-Bali is one of the world’s oldest continuously operating leather processing facilities — in use since the 11th century. The tannery’s characteristic circular stone vats, filled with natural pigments including saffron yellow, poppy red, indigo blue, mint green, and the distinctive white of lime, create a coloured grid visible from the surrounding terrace shops. The leather processing sequence — soaking in pigeon lime to remove hair, then manual softening by treading, then dyeing in the pigment vats — is conducted by hand using methods unchanged for a millennium. This photograph was made from a terrace position overlooking the full tannery yard, timed to coincide with the active dyeing phase in the most chromatic vats. A telephoto lens compressed the vat geometry to maximise colour density. Access to terrace viewpoints is provided by the surrounding leather shops and requires entry through their premises.
