£875
Decorative Arts: Design since 1860 | 616
Auction: Decorative Arts: Design since 1860
elm, with hinged lid, decorated to the front with a frieze carved with birds and opposed figures
Note: The iconography in the carved frieze may refer to 'Ababil' (meaning a flock of birds), the miraculous birds in Islamic belief, mentioned in Sura 105 of the Quran, that protected the Kaaba in Mecca from the Aksumite elephant army of Abraha, then self-styled governor of Himyar, by dropping small clay stones on them as they approached. This event is said to have occurred in 570, the year that the Islamic prophet Muhammad was born.