The old medina of the Regency of Tunis sustained an important economic network in the form of specialised corporate suqs. Local and migrant craftsmen and traders mainly set up around the Grand Mosque of Zaytuna. Each suq had a particular name, including the suq of the Turks, the suq of the Bey and the suq of the perfumers.

The tombs of the Husaynid Beys of Tunisia are housed in the royal mausoleum in Tunis. They are further surrounded by their most faithful and loyal officials, ministers and servants. The unity in death belies the personalities’ varied and complex ethnic backgrounds and interrelations.

Potters also were often on the move when patronage waned in their homelands and better prospects beckoned elsewhere. This archetypal Tunisian jar from the 18th century combines local artistic traditions with those of Andalusian and Turkish migrants, brought in over centuries.

This colourful 18th-century tile panel, on which an arch encloses an Ottoman-style mosque above and a flower vase below, symbolises a fusion of artistic tastes brought to Tunisia by Andalusian and Ottoman Turkish migrants over the centuries.

Of all of the symbols of the traditions and customs of the Arab Bedouin communities, this coffee pot is not only the most famous one as a symbol of their hospitality, but it also represents an item of their nomadic culture that became common all over the cities and towns of the Arab world.

In 19th-century Tunisia, the Husaynid Beys – of Muslim Cretan origin – ably ruled the country from Tunis’s Bardo Palace in the face of considerable and complex, political challenges. Here, Muhammad al-Sadiq Bey (1813–82) leaves the palace surrounded by his officials, themselves of varied ethnic backgrounds.

Isma’il Pasha, viceroy of Egypt from 1867 to 1879, was a determined moderniser. The Suez Canal – inaugurated in 1869 during his reign – opened a vital route for mass migration to Asia.

Ibrahim Pasha, Muhammad ‘Ali’s son, distinguished himself as a military leader. One of his campaigns was aimed at halting and rebuffing the east–west migration of pastoral nomads from the interior of the Arabian Peninsula to Palestine.

Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha was an Ottoman general of Albanian descent. Dispatched to look after Ottoman interests in Egypt, he soon assumed practically unchallenged power. A great statesman and considered the founder of modern Egypt, he governed between 1805 and 1848 and established the dynasty that was to head Egypt until middle of the 20th century.

In the 19th-century, Ottoman officials and their entourage also had to migrate regularly, as they were posted to the provinces to assume representational duties. The material culture they surrounded themselves with always reflected the reality they lived in, showing a fusion of European-style, traditional Ottoman and regional influences.

Within Arab and Ottoman lands and across North Africa, jewellery making was often the speciality of migrant artisans of – among others – Jewish, Armenian or Circassian background. Wherever they moved, they combined their indigenous traditions with local tastes.