This engraving depicts the court of the Zaydi imam in the city of Sanaa, as Carsten Niebuhr saw it. Later European visitors, including Flieringa, encountered a similar scene: a hall where the imam was seated on some elevation, while visitors were offered seats (unlike the standing figures in the image) along the room's walls. The Zaydi imams, and Imam Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn especially, were not keen on images of them to be made. We have no photos of the imam in Flieringa’s collection.
Carsten Niebuhr, Carsten Niebuhrs Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern, volume 1, 1774, tab. LXIX (HOTZ 1837)