Tabouret de prestige "oche-ozo" · Nigéria, Igbo, Région d'Awka · ID: 3048679
Zemanek-Münster, Würzburg, 23 September 2006, Lot 194
Werner Zintl, Worms, Germany
Description
wood,
While stools were carved in many Igbo communities, Awka carvers are the best known.
A stool from the same workshop, ex Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, Geneva, currently in the holdings of the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Paris (Inv. no. 73.1996.1.97) - see also AHDRC 0141089. Apart from one additional level, the Branly stool is almost identical in structural design and decoration. Another stool from this workshop comes from an old English collection, see AHDRC 0141156.
Stools are important visual symbols for their owner’s high social rank and prestige. Moreover, titled men and members of important societies, such as the Ozo institution, were forbidden to sit on the ground.
Publications
Eisenhofer, Stefan (Hg.), Kulte, Künstler, Könige in Afrika, Linz 1997, p. 404, IV/5.2AHDRC: 0095365
Exposition
Linz, Austria: "Kulte, Künstler, Könige in Afrika.Tradition und Moderne in Südnigeria", Schlossmuseum, 3 October 1997- 5 April 1998