Asante — Ghana
Circa 1900–1925
Wood
Height: 22½ in (57.2 cm); Width: 23 in (58.4 cm)
Provenance: UK trade; private collection, London
In Asante culture, the stool is among the most significant objects a person can own, functioning as a repository of the owner's sunsum, or soul, and serving as a primary marker of personal identity, status, and spiritual continuity. This large example is carved in the form of an elephant, with the seat supported above the animal's back — the elephant being among the most charged symbols of chiefly power and authority in Asante visual culture. The heavy wood retains a warm, worn surface consistent with age and long use.
Elephant-form stools of this scale are associated with high-ranking titleholders and are among the more formally ambitious examples of Asante stool carving. The strong sculptural presence of the elephant body, rendered with attention to mass and proportion, gives the piece a commanding quality appropriate to its symbolic register.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Asante — Ghana
Circa 1900–1925
Wood
Height: 22½ in (57.2 cm); Width: 23 in (58.4 cm)
Provenance: UK trade; private collection, London
In Asante culture, the stool is among the most significant objects a person can own, functioning as a repository of the owner's sunsum, or soul, and serving as a primary marker of personal identity, status, and spiritual continuity. This large example is carved in the form of an elephant, with the seat supported above the animal's back — the elephant being among the most charged symbols of chiefly power and authority in Asante visual culture. The heavy wood retains a warm, worn surface consistent with age and long use.
Elephant-form stools of this scale are associated with high-ranking titleholders and are among the more formally ambitious examples of Asante stool carving. The strong sculptural presence of the elephant body, rendered with attention to mass and proportion, gives the piece a commanding quality appropriate to its symbolic register.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
