The Last Palace

The Last Palace is the three story house which belonged to the artist's grandmother, situated in an attractive hidden street in what he feels was his formerly beautiful city. The house still stands today, amidst the ugliness resulting from the destruction of many beautiful houses surrounding, it caused by the new planning of the city of Damascus. UNESCO interfered and saved the building, it was not sympathetically restored, so Arabi painted it from memory rather than from life.
This painting is from the collection entitled Shameyat (Views of Damascus) which is a dedicated to the 2008 celebration of Damascus as the Capital of Arab Culture.