A Curious Thirteenth Century Blue Folding Stool

A Curious Thirteenth Century Blue Folding Stool
Muqima al-Kaslaania with work from Sayyeda Urtatim Al-Qurtubiyya
January 2013

While helping a friend look for an image source, I spotted this stool (the lower figure sits on it).

Folio from an Arabic translation of the Materia medica by Dioscorides. This Arabic translation is dated to 1224 in Baghdad. The original is housed at the Freer Gallery of Art, of the Smithsonian Institutes in Washington, D.C.
http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/zoomObject.cfm?ObjectId=46284

From this image alone another researcher, Sayyed "Uncle" Rashid, believed it could be a common ceramic drum stool. Similar items are known from the period.

This stool is housed at the Freer Gallery as well. Painted stone. Eleventh century; Raqqa, Syria.
http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/singleObject.cfm?ObjectNumber=F1911.1


However, my friend Sayyeda Urtatim discovered another image from the same manuscript, this time housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

"Preparation of Medicine from Honey: Leaf from an Arabic translation of the Materia Medica of Dioscorides [Iraq, Baghdad School]" (13.152.6) In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/13.152.6. (December 2011) 


And I discovered a third.

Folio from an Arabic translation of the Materia medica by Dioscorides. This Arabic translation is dated to 1224 in Baghdad. The original is housed at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institutes in Washington, D.C.  Item number S 1986.97.
http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/singleObject.cfm?ObjectNumber=S1986.97


Finally, Sayyeda Urtatim discovered this fourth image from the same manuscript.

"Leaf from an Arabic translation of the Materia Medica of Dioscorides ("The Pharmacy") [Iraq]" (57.51.21) In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/57.51.21. (October 2006)



At first, I identified that each of these is situated near a cookpot, but it's actually a pharmacy or pharmacist in each image. All are blue, but because all are displayed in the same manuscript that could be a convention of the artist. Could it be a depiction of metal?

It looks to the modern eye like a folding stool, with the balls acting as hinge points. Other thoughts?

Wow!! Thank you, Rachel. Researcher Rachel Shaw saw this post and did the simplest search imaginable: "Islamic folding chair". She found this:

Image 32 a, b. Folding chair, Persian, 12th century, and detail. Private Collection, Teheran. As it appears in: Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1972; p. 301.
 http://books.google.com/books?id=d-4slWpMYV8C&lpg=PA299&ots=q78JGVKPk3&dq=islamic%20folding%20stool&pg=PA301#v=onepage&q=islamic%20folding%20stool&f=false