The Ifrane Lion

The Guardian of the Forest

Nicknamed the “Guardian of the Forest”, Ifrane’s lion is the city’s best-known landmark. For nearly a century, visitors to the city have taken photos with the Ifrane lion when passing through. This exhibit uses items from the M6L Archives & Special Collections to explore the lion’s place in Ifrane’s past and present.

Origins of the Ifrane Lion

The Ifrane Lion was carved entirely from rock by the hands of a skilled sculptor, whose identity has long been a subject of debate. According to Mohammed El Aouene (d.2010) the statue was sculpted around 1930 by Henri Jean Moreau (d.1956), who was professor of drawing at the Lycée Gouraud (now Lycée Hassan II) of Rabat.

Several other stories surround the origins of the statue. While El Aouene’s attribution of the sculpture to Moreau is the most carefully researched, it is far from universally recognized. Among the best-known stories surrounding the creation of the lion of Ifrane attributes it to a prisoner or legionnaire in the early 20th century. Older members of the community in Ifrane will tell you, without too much precision, that he was a German or Italian prisoner of the World War II era. Still others will argue that the sculptor was a French legionnaire.

Henri Jean Moreau (1890-1956)

Photograph of Henri Moreau (c.1930). Original from M. El Aouene, “Ifrane” (2004)

Born in Libourne, France on 9 January 1890, Henri Jean Moreau attended the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris (Paris School of Fine Arts) for three years. He also fought in the trenches during World War I (1914-1918). Moreau left France in 1928 to settle in Morocco, remaining here until 1954. The photo here, which was reprinted in Ifrane, La Perle du Moyen Atlas (2002), would have been taken shortly after his arrival. Initially, he worked as a drawing teacher at Lycée Gouraud (today Lycée Hassan II) and later as an inspector of historical monuments.

The artist’s first Moroccan creation was the lion of Ifrane. Moreau sculpted pieces for several churches, including the statue of the Virgin Mary that was housed in the Ifrane Church, Notre Dame des Cèdres. He was also entrusted with creating the war memorial at Lycée Gouraud in Rabat, as well as a bust of Sultan Mohammed V. He worked with various materials such as stone, wood, and terracotta.

Moreau died in France in July 1956.

Mohammed El Aouene

Ifrane-born writer and teacher Mohamed El Aouene (d.2010) dedicated tremendous energy to the study of Ifrane and its history. He authored two small books on Ifrane, entitled Ifrane, La Perle du Moyen Atlas (2008) and La Sculpture du Lion d’Ifrane (2004). Copies of both are held in the M6L Archives & Special Collections. In the background photo from 2008, he appears standing beside the lion.

El Aouene was also well known online among the users of forums dedicated to the history of colonial-era Morocco. While he often contributed to discussions relating to the history of Ifrane, he also used these online forums to gather information and eye-witness testimonies of the city’s former residents.

M6L Postcards & Photos of the Ifrane Lion

The Ifrane Lion began featuring in postcards almost immediately after the town’s establishment in the late 1920s. By the early 1930s, the lion was appearing in postcards aimed at promoting this new summer and winter holiday destination. Some of the postcards in the M6L Archives & Special Collections feature the lion in the earliest stages of Ifrane’s history, such as the image in one postcard here below that shows the lion not yet fully sculpted and the Hotel Balima under construction in the background. The postcard carries the date 1933 but the image is clearly from a few years earlier.

The Ifrane Lion & Family Photos

The Ifrane Lion has been at the heart of the photos of visitors to Ifrane for nearly a century. Alongside the photographs and postcards from the M6L Archives & Special Collections in this exhibit, many people have posted their old family photos with the lion online. Most often, these appear on online forums of former residents of colonial-era Morocco (1911-1956), who spent their childhoods or family vacations in Ifrane.

A Rare Family Video of the Lion (1961)

The video clip below comes from the INA France online collection (https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/amx13001745/promenade-en-famille-autour-d-ifrane). The film depicts a family visiting Ifrane in 1961 and the clip here includes a shot of the children in front of the Ifrane Lion and an unfettered view of the Sultan’s palace across the street.

AUI & the Lion

AUI also holds the lion in high regard, choosing it as its official university mascot. The lion appears on AUI ephemera and souvenirs, including the stuffed lion and keychain displayed here below. The last AUI student newspaper to be published in print, the AUI Chronicle (2013-2016), featured the lion on its banner.