Rare & Early Moroccan Silver, Gilt & Red Felt Anklet (Khalkhal)

This beautiful anklet is the product of the Jewish jewellers of the coastal city of Essaouira, west of Marrakesh, which had one of Morocco’s most vibrant commercial Jewish communities. It is dated and the dating is especially early.

The anklet is cast, chiselled and pierced with scrolling Arabesques. Similarly worked plaques overlaid with gold decorate both the front, sides and back of the anklet. In two hinged halves, the anklet opens and closes via a pull-out pin cast with a pigeon-form finial. (A bird used in this manner is an emblem of fertility and prosperity.) A thick, heavy silver chain links the pin with one of the gilded plaques on the side of the anklet.

The gilded plaques are pierced and underlaid with red textile which provides a pleasing contrast with the surrounding gold. The combination of red fabric with gold and silver seems to have been a specialty of Jewish jewellers in Essaouira .

Both halves of the bracelet have a clear set of assay marks inside plus date stamps of a type used by the authorities in Essaouira. The date stamp reads 1256 AH which approximates to 1840 AD. This is very early for this type of anklet. (A similar example illustrated in Rabate, 2015, p. 36 is dated 1306 AH or 1888 AD.) This date is one of the earliest or possibly the earliest date known on such an anklet. Such an early dating suggests that this type of anklet was created first by the local Jewish silver and goldsmiths of Essaouira, and then jewellery makers elsewhere in northern Morocco such as in Meknes and Fes, copied the form later.

The anklet is in excellent condition.