Tribunal of the Alhambra

The Patio of the Golden Room is also known as the Patio of the Mosque, perhaps because there is an oratory juxtaposed to the Golden Room by its west wall, and as the Patio of the Wardens. Perhaps this is the reason why Mariano Fortuny assumed that the court that would judge those accused of having committed a crime met there. The painter, fascinated by the exoticism of the Arab culture that he knew first-hand on his trips to Morocco, developed a series of paintings according to the orientalist taste with which legends and customs narrated by the so-called "romantic travelers" were captured. The Court of Justice of the Alhambra is good proof of this. Fortuny must have done very good research to compose the scene, as demonstrated by the details included in it. The Almohad capitals of the two columns of the portico, the only ones of this style existing in the Alhambra, leave no room for doubt about the space represented on the canvas: the Patio of the Golden Room, which recreates it including the projecting balcony built in the period. of the Catholic Monarchs. -which he could not see because it was eliminated in 1865-, wooden doors at the entrance to the Golden Room, ceramic decoration both in the porticoed gallery and around the fountain in the center. On the other hand, the way in which the fountain is embedded in the floor of the patio corresponds to its era since the one that can currently be seen is from 1966.
What is the color of the water collected in the fountain? That of the imagination of romantic travelers who sang around the world about their fascination with the Alhambra. So, never better than now, the color of the water is Alhambra.
Salvador Dalí met this work in 1962 in New York, becoming fascinated by it, which explains his membership in the Gala-Salvador Dalí Museum.