A Moorish Olive Wood & Inlaid Camel Saddle Stool
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Origin: North Africa/Middle East
Period: Late Nineteenth/early Twentieth Century
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.1900
Height: 21 inches
Length: 26 inches
Depth: 20 inches
A very good example, constructed from several pieces of olivewood, bound together with strips of camel hide to form a saddle stool with splayed supports and round pommels. Beautifully and intricately inlaid all over with bone, ebony and fruitwoods to form stars, borders, and rows of geometric design, it would have originally been harnessed to a camel, and mounted with a cushion as a saddle.It is rare to find a camel stool of such a high quality. More often they are found simply constructed, with basic carving and decoration; this example displays such a high level of workmanship that it was probably created for ornamental or ceremonial use.
'Moorish' is a term first coined in the nineteenth century to describe Islamic North Africans, typically Arabs and Berbers, and while the term now has little ethnographic use, it is used to describe the Islamic influence on art and architecture found in North Africa, southern Spain, and Portugal. .