Ceremonial chief stool · D. R. Congo, Chokwe/Luena · ID: 3040298
Description
wood, reddish brown and black patina, in shape of a squatting anthropomorphic figure, with angled legs and arms supporting a small round seat, crowned by a proportionally small head with fine grooved coiffure (reminding of the Luena), feet and hands neglected, bladebones and backbone marked by grooves, min. dam., minor missing parts (rim of the seat), cracks at the same place, rep. (knee of the right leg), base;
particularly shapely by simplification of the body and limbs as well as by their symmetical arrangement.
That kind of stools where a head or a part of the figure projects beyond the seat can be traced back to Luba influence from the middle of the 19th century.
Comparing literature
Bocola, Sandro (Hg.), Afrikanische Sitze, München, New York 1994, ill. 112 Scharf, Dieter (Hg.), Sehen lernen - Eine Sammlung afrikanischer Figuren, Köln 1999, p. 96, ill. 37