Caryatid stool ·  D. R. Congo, Luba - Shankadi · ID: 3033344

Description

wood, brown patina with traces of black paint, female supporting figure, elaborately adorned with scarification marks, three-parted earring of silver metal sheet, slightly dam., crack, missing part (rim of the seat);
stools are associated with the complex hierarchy of seating privileges that distinguish members of the royal court. Rank and title are indicated by the progressive accession to more prestigiuous forms of seating - from simple woven mats, to animal skins and furs, to modeled clay thrones adorned with geometric and figurative representations, and finally to the sculpted wooden stools and thrones that are the prerogative only of kings and spirit mediums.
The most important characteristic of the Shankadi style is the cascading hairdo, that with slight variations, marks all objects coming from this region.

Comparing literature

Roberts, Mary Nooter, Memory, New York 1996, p. 152, ill. 59 Schädler, Karl-Ferdinand, Encyclopedia of African Art and Culture, München 2009, p. 546