Lobi, Burkina Faso, early 20th century
Wood
8 x 25 1/2 inches (20.3 x 64.8 cm)
Provenance: Ann de Pauw, Brussels; Lucuien Van de Velde, Antwerp; Christie's, 2009
Published: Less is More, Antwerp, 2010
The seat is cut from a single length of wood as a shallow saddle, dished across its width and rising slightly at the center, carried on tapered conical legs that splay outward from beneath it. At each end the seat narrows to a neck and terminates in a head carved in the round, the features gathered into the lower face with a coiffure rendered as close radiating grooves across the crown. The wood has worn to a pale honey brown across the seat where it was sat on, while the legs and the undersides hold a darker surface, and the grain runs unbroken from one terminal head through to the other.
Lobi stools were personal objects in southwestern Burkina Faso, carried and used by their owner rather than held communally, and a stool of this length with worked terminals belonged to someone of standing. The heads follow the same conventions as Lobi bateba figures, with the same treatment of the brow and the grooved coiffure, which places the stool within the same carving tradition rather than apart from it. Working seat and both heads from one piece leaves no scope for repair at the necks, and both terminals here are complete.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Lobi, Burkina Faso, early 20th century
Wood
8 x 25 1/2 inches (20.3 x 64.8 cm)
Provenance: Ann de Pauw, Brussels; Lucuien Van de Velde, Antwerp; Christie's, 2009
Published: Less is More, Antwerp, 2010
The seat is cut from a single length of wood as a shallow saddle, dished across its width and rising slightly at the center, carried on tapered conical legs that splay outward from beneath it. At each end the seat narrows to a neck and terminates in a head carved in the round, the features gathered into the lower face with a coiffure rendered as close radiating grooves across the crown. The wood has worn to a pale honey brown across the seat where it was sat on, while the legs and the undersides hold a darker surface, and the grain runs unbroken from one terminal head through to the other.
Lobi stools were personal objects in southwestern Burkina Faso, carried and used by their owner rather than held communally, and a stool of this length with worked terminals belonged to someone of standing. The heads follow the same conventions as Lobi bateba figures, with the same treatment of the brow and the grooved coiffure, which places the stool within the same carving tradition rather than apart from it. Working seat and both heads from one piece leaves no scope for repair at the necks, and both terminals here are complete.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
