The Barakat family

Barakat is a family enterprise in its fifth generation, owned and run by the family for more than 125 years and led today by Fayez Barakat.

Origins

The story begins towards the end of the nineteenth century, when the family started gathering a sizeable collection of objects found in the hills around their farmland in Jordan. Word of the fast-growing “Barakat Collection” spread quickly, and workers, farmers and merchants from across the region came to see it for themselves: some to buy, some to sell or trade, others simply to admire or to learn. It soon became clear that this remarkable assembly of objects was at once a sustainable business, an important cultural archive, and an open-minded, creative way of collecting.

Custodians

From those modest beginnings, the Barakat family have been dedicated custodians, offering a platform on which extraordinary culture from every part of the world can be preserved and shared. Their curiosity, free of prejudice, and their love of art and culture have shaped an exceptionally varied collection, with a range of objects that has few equals, from the everyday to the magnificent, drawn from every corner of the globe.

Today

The collection now numbers tens of thousands of objects. Beyond caring for it, the family's galleries, offices and homes around the world serve as distinctive venues, each hosting its own events, exhibitions and intimate encounters through which the diversity of human culture, past and present, can be better understood in our own time.

Marrakech

The Marrakech gallery brings the Barakat collection to Morocco: antique African sculpture and masks, Amazigh silver jewellery from the Atlas and the south, and paintings by Fayez Barakat. Every piece is shown with its people, origin, materials and dating, and can be seen in person by appointment.

Paintings and objects

Fayez Barakat is also a painter. In every Barakat gallery one of his canvases hangs among the ancient pieces; our Paintings section continues that dialogue. Fayez Barakat →