Maggs Bros. Ltd.

**A stunning group of devotional and literary posters printed in North Africa during the first half of the twentieth century.**They provide an insight into how Quranic and Arabic literature was expressed in print, and the degree to which figural representation was accepted in the popular and decorative art of the region.

Despite bearing no imprint, they follow the stylistic conventions of several earlier and contemporaneous publishers of Islamic popular print, such as the Algiers-based publisher and printer team of Éditions Bonestève and Baconnier Frères. They are most likely later re-workings of previous posters, printed around 1940.

The subjects include Adam and Hawwa (Eve), Yusuf and Zuleikha, ‘Ali ibn Ali Talib with his sons Hussein and Hassan, Noah and his ark, the Sufi saint ’Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, and a remarkable image of Ibrahim, Isma’il and the Angel Jibril.The prints are of particular interest for their representations of women, with figures such as the Angel Jibril (who has no human gender, but is usually depicted as male) clearly feminised in the print in which Jibreel delivers a ram in place of Isma’il, thereby saving his life.

Reference: Ava Katarina Tabatabai Hess, 'Five Algerian postcards: a brief history of 'Images Populaires' in Maghreb chromolithography' in The Journal of North African Studies, 30:1, (2025), 115-148.