A caryatid stool of the Luba, from the southern Congo. Such stools with human support figures are the preserve only of chiefs and high dignitaries in the kingdom of the Luba. The visibly very old chief’s stool offered here consists of a single piece of hard, light-coloured wood and was originally dyed black and brown. The stool has a round seat, in the middle of which a white glass bead is inset. The supporting figure below shows a typical Luba woman (women amongst the Luba enjoyed a high social position: for this reason, representations of women are very common in the art of the Luba). She wears a characteristic hairstyle, with numerous smooth plaits on her head, and two transverse plaits on the back. Her arms are depicted as bent, free from the body, and her hands rest on her breasts (also a common motif in the art of the Luba). On her left shoulder and from the breasts downwards, above her abdomen and on both sides of her back, she has typical tribal decorative scars in lozenge patterns. As ornament she wears two chains, one as a necklace, the other as a belt, of large white and blue glass beads (an old type, very popular in the Congo).
From the middle section of the sculpture downwards, clear age-related damage is identifiable: breaks and areas of loss through the influence of weathering and/or early insect damage (termites?). Also visible are small breaks to the head and on the edge as well as on the seat surface. The base plate is no longer preserved.
Yet beyond these signs of great age, this impressive, large piece displays a very good, old usage patina (seat, head etc.).
Height: c. 50 cm; diameter: 26 cm (the seat). Between c. 1900 and the first third of the 20th century. (ME)

Provenance: South African private collection.