Dar Jamai Museum

Dar Jamai is a residence built in 1882. Having a Spanish-Moors style, this palace represents a prototype of the houses of the Moroccan 'Makhzen families' at the end of the XIX century.
This big house used to belong to Ben Larbi Jamai, the first minister (visir) of the Sultan Moulay Hassan the 1st (1879­1894), and after it ended up being sold to Madani Glaoui of Marrakesh who never came to live in it.

In 1922, the French took the palace and built a military hospital in its central part. But in 1920, the entire building was attributed to the regional inspection of the fine arts which transform it into a museum, with a gallery dedicated to craft arts. Ever since, Dar Jamai is classified as a historical monument, and its collections are enriched by the acquisitions that were made by the Moroccan State.

The collections

The collections of Dar Jamai have been constituted from the acquisitions and from the donations of ethnographic objects of different materials (wood, textile, ceramic, metal, leather, paper). The first collections dates back to 1917, and have been enriched by the acquisition of some carpets between 1980 and 1990.

These artworks bespeak of the artisanal know-how of Meknes city and its region. The dating of a big part of the objects housed in the museum Dar Jamai stretches between the XIX and the XX centuries.

The journey of the visit is thematic and is distributed on two levels, the ground and the first flours.
Upon entry, the visitors get a foretaste of the permanent exposition, composed of weapons, embroideries, woodwork, damasks, ceramics and jewellery.

One of the principle halls is the mosque of the palace, where we can find a magnificent sculpted wooden Minbar of the 17th century. In the other parts of the ground floor, are exposed painted and sculpted wood artworks, embroideries of Meknes, traditional costume, urban and rural jewellery, pieces of ceramic and the brassware of Meknes, traditional ironworks, some traditional accessories of the Hammam or weapons and accessories that are used for the Fantasia.

Upstairs, a lobby gives access to the Qubbat, the hall of reception or pageantry, where are exposed some manuscripts and Qorans. As for the last hall, it contains different music instruments.