A RARE AQUAMARINE CHESS PIECE, EGYPT, IRAQ OR PERSIA, 9TH CENTURY

Ex-collection Rolad Ansemet, Switzerland.

Ex-collection Abrahim Hroub, Jerusalem, 1970.

The most popular indoor game of Abbasid Baghdad, chess spread to the Levant, North Africa and the Byzantine Empire via the Islamic conquests. In her detailed analysis of the chess and other gaming pieces in the Al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, Deborah Freeman Fahid looks at the evolution of the abstract and figural styles. Twentieth century excavations in Afrasiyab and Nishapur point to the existence of this game in Sassanian times (Freeman Fahid 2018, p.14). She suggests an earlier dating for some chess pieces rather than the usual eleventh century Fatimid dating (ibid). In terms of the gentle bevelled style of carving, one must turn to wood (see Sotheby's, Select Works from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art Jerusalem, 27 October 2020, lot 3, 'A Tulunid carved wood door panel').