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.

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.

This coffee pot represents the traditional hospitality of the Arab Bedouin people, regularly migrating within Arab and Ottoman lands, be it for trading, with the seasons for more fertile pastures, or in the wake of ecological or political turmoil.

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.

In Islamic culture, calligraphers and book makers have always enjoyed high status and been highly sought after. As a result they could travel widely at the invitation of patrons. This Qur’an manuscript, written in Maghrebian cursive script with Ottoman illumination, symbolises the confluence of different artists and their traditions, combining local North African with pan-Ottoman styles.

Numerous Turkish craftsmen came to work in Tunis in the early 19th century. They help to develop bookbinding techniques and decoration, represented by this beautiful book cover executed at the time.

This colourful 19th-century tile panel with its exuberant flower vase within an arch symbolises a fusion of artistic tastes brought to Tunisia by Andalusian and Ottoman Turkish migrants over the centuries.

Carved plaster decorations were highly prevalent in 18th- and 19th-century Tunisian palaces and mansions. Many were executed in a style that represented a fusion of tastes reflecting the country’s diverse cultural legacy – Arab, Berber, Andalusian, Ottoman and later also Italian and French.

This document, written on behalf of Tunisian traders based in Constantinople in the 19th century and addressed to the Bey of Tunis, bears witness to the mobility of craftsmen and traders within the Ottoman Empire.