Niche ceiling. Entrance to the Hall of Comares

Schedule: every Saturday in November at 12.00 p.m.
Place: Hall VII, Museum of the Alhambra, Palace of Charles V.
One of the niche ceilings of the access arch to the Hall of Comares is conserved in the Museum of the Alhambra. This piece, together with its partner kept in situ, can be considered the only examples known at the moment of this type of pieces.
Although it is a simple board with the lace decoration, it is interesting by its exclusive feature, as well as by the specific technique used in the geometric pattern, playing with wood of different colours and textures. The exhibition of the characteristics of this piece leads us to enter in its context by making a revision of the internal decoration of the niches in the Alhambra, the variety of materials used and their treatment, as well as of the vestiges that have been preserved. We will also be able to reconstruct the aspect of some lost examples.
The niches, next to the hollows for cupboards, blind openings in the walls, specially associated with the constructions of the Nasrid time. The niches are drawn up and executed in the width of the jambs of the doors or the accesses to the main rooms of the houses and are frequent elements in the Alhambra by the evident magnificence of these palaces. In addition to being an element with singular decoration that integrates in the panels covering the jambs, by their projection inside them, they provide specific data for the interpretation of other archaeological remains of this type of structures.