Couscous Platter

Arts of Africa

Early/mid–20th century

Aït Bouaddou or Aït Mendes
Bezzit or Merkala, Kabylie region, Algeria
Northern Africa and the Sahel

Female potters of the Aït Bouaddou and other Imazighen groups of Algeria’s mountainous Kabylie region embellish their ceramics for storing, preparing, and serving food with a variety of painted decorations. Drawing on a rich vocabulary of checkerboards, crosses, circles, and triangles, this boldly ornamented platter is enlivened with a symmetrical composition that develops outward from a central point.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Aït bou Addou
Title: Couscous Platter
Place: Algeria (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1900–1975
Medium: Terracotta and pigment
Dimensions: 7 × 43.2 cm (2 3/4 × 17 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Keith Achepohl
Reference Number: 2005.282

Kathleen Bickford Berzock, For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection (The Art Institute and Yale University Press, 2005), p. 50.

Art Institute of Chicago, For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection, Dec. 3, 2005–Feb. 20, 2006, cat. 15.

Unknown owner, Morocco, by about 1990; sold to Joan Barist Primitive Art, New York, N.Y., about 1990; sold to Throckmorton Fine Art, New York, N.Y., about 1995; sold to Tom Alexander, New York, N.Y., about 1995; sold to Keith Achepohl, about 1995; given to the Art Institute, 2005.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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