While the Alhambra was triggering so much interest and so many passions in the West and in Spain, how was it perceived from the Orient, or more particularly from the Islamic world, whose heritage it was allegedly an essential element of? After all, travellers, artists and architects kept reminding their audiences of the place the Alhambra occupied in the evolution of Islamic art and civilisation. Was this discovery being made unbeknown to those who were supposed to be the heirs and worthy descendants of this civilisation? The question is all the more justified if one considers that it was more or less implicitly embedded in some of the works mentioned earlier. Indeed, the illustrated plates depicting the interior of the monument often staged Moors, whose costume and presence contributed to the feelings of exoticism and authenticity sought by these authors. Of course, in most cases, this was a mere artistic fiction, which does not warrant the quest for possible traces in contemporary reality. Nevertheless, some of these images stand out due to the context of a Muslim – or Arab – presence of an unmistakably concrete nature. An excellent example is plate XXXIV in Laborde's work, representing the ‘Court of the Lions’ (Figure 2.1). There, halfway between the famous fountain and the gallery surrounding the court, a group of three men can be spotted, whose turbans and wide cloaks leave no doubt as to their Muslim, Arab or North African identity. True, Laborde would often spice up his plates with fantasy scenes and figures, such as plate XXXIII, representing the ‘Court of the Baths’, which displayed a naked woman dipping her feet in the pool. However, in the case of the plate mentioned earlier, the fact that the three turbaned men are preceded by a Westerner wearing a bicorn hat and whose gesture suggests that he is guiding them, allows us to assume that this time there was more to it than just a decorative element.