Prestige Stool: Figures
Elaborate ceremonial stools of this kind were owned by the hogon, the supreme religious and political leader in each Dogon community. The design and elaboration of such works draw inspiration from Dogon cosmology. It has been proposed that the very structure of the dual disks of the seat and base may echo the arrangement of heaven and earth. Some sources have identified the four figurative supports as protagonists from the Dogon account of Creation. According to this reading of the imagery, the following characters are visually evoked: a set of twins, direct descendants of Nommo, the first living being; a crocodile, Nommo’s saurian messenger; and two figures framed by two snakes that recall the origins of mortality.
Artwork Details
- Title: Prestige Stool: Figures
- Date: 15th–19th century
- Geography: Mali
- Culture: Dogon or Tellem peoples (?)
- Medium: Wood, sacrificial patina
- Dimensions: H. 15 3/16 × Diam. 14 in. (38.6 × 35.6 cm)
- Classification: Wood-Furniture
- Credit Line: The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979
- Object Number: 1979.206.110
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
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Tellem artist
16th century
Ngongo ya Chintu, formerly known as the "Buli Master" (ca. 1810-1870, Kateba region, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
ca. 1840–1870
Duala artist
Mid–late 19th century
Igbo artist
late 19th–early 20th century
Dogon peoples
15th–19th century
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