This is the rating and price for 238: A Chokwe Or Lwena Wood Stool, Ex-Christie'S

Description : Angola, 20th century. Hide seat with golden-brown hair, lower struts with carved figural groups, upper struts with frog, turtle, tortoise and fish. Cp. similar example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art In many societies of Central Africa, such as the Chokwe and related peoples like the Songo and the Ovimbundu, functional artifacts are transformed into prestige objects that commemorate the power and status of the chief. Chokwe chiefs possess many elaborately carved articles, including ceremonial weapons, staffs of office, tobacco pipes, and seats of office. Over the course of numerous encounters with European traders as early as the seventeenth century, Chokwe chiefs appropriated the design of certain types of Western artifacts. The seats of office, or thrones, of Chokwe chiefs, with backs, leather-covered seats, and decorative brass tacks, are modeled upon European chairs. The decoration of the chair, however, remains distinctly Chokwe in style. The elaborate figurative scenes depicted on this and other seats of office are designed as symbolic microcosms of life and represent the breadth of a leader's concerns and responsibilities. The rows of figures along the stretchers at the base of the chair are carved representations of scenes from everyday life. The decoration features women tending to their children. The overall organization of these scenes creates a united visual narrative emphasizing the social harmony and continuity that is ultimately achieved through following the enlightened leadership of the chair's owner, namely, the chief. The Chokwe kingdom rose to power during the late nineteenth century in the broad expanse of open savanna in the southern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Angola. As the Chokwe population expanded, they eventually conquered the previously dominant Lunda empire, which declined after the abolition of the slave trade in the 1830s. The Chokwe peoples thrived primarily because of the profitable trade of ivory, wax, and rubber with the Portuguese. Chokwe chairs are among the few African objects not carved from a single piece of wood, but are instead assembled in parts. 20H x 18-1/4 Top x 15-1/4W. Provenance: Ex-Christie's, London, April 1989.
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