Exhibition on Lambrequin
15.01.2020
Today is the last day, so hurry!
The exhibition on Lambrequin at the Caudan Blue Penny Museum is a hymn to the creativity, culture and the sheer art of highly skilled workers. We see the patterns, the differences, the developments of culture in Mauritius, and in Reunion, through this very ordinary cultural artifact.
So, in Kreol the word “lanbrekin” or “dantel lakaz” means the lace-like artwork, usually cut from tin or iron sheets, used to decorate the edges of houses made of wood or of wood with a tin roof. There are special effects for door entrances and window frames, and combs and domes of roofs.
Curated with his usual care and skill by Emmanuel Richon, with beautiful painting and photography by Steeve Dubois, Ismet Ganti and Jean-Bernard Grondin, the exhibition is a eulogy to the artisans who developed and still develop this form of art.
In fact, the word, “lambrequin” usually refers to those ornamental hangings made of upholstery or other cloth that cover window tops, in the same material as the curtains, or over a door as decoration. Or it can refer to other kinds of border pattern in other materials, as if lace-like, in say ceramics or wood. Hence, the use of the word for this Mauritian cultural artifact in architecture.
The lambrequin on the edge of verandahs have the additional value of stopping the rain from the roof just whooshing down on people, by spreading it out more evenly.
The word comes from “lamperkin”, a Dutch word used to describe that kind of haberdashery, “lamper” meaning “veil” and “kin” meaning “little”, thus a “little veil”.
Lindsey Collen
