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LUBA CARYATID STOOL, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO This stool embodies all of the qualities of a royal Luba stool, the figure has carved wooden conical nails at the back of her coiffure in place of tacks, she has a crossshaped Kaposhi hairstyle, once reserved for Luba chiefs and their wives. The female figure with her curvilinear legs symbolises the importance of women in Luba society, as it was women who brought new life and as a result held power and spiritual secrets. Luba objects were usually owned by Luba male nobility and this stool was always a symbolic seat of power rather than a place to sit, village repair 36cm high PROVENANCEWalter Dehne, an employee of Woermann-Linie, Hamburg, 1898"Stools are among the most important symbols of Luba kingship, as they are for many African peoples. Not only is the Luba king’s palace referred to as a “seat of power", but seating is a metaphor for the many levels and layers of hierarchy that characterize Luba royal prerogatives. There are two principal types of Luba stools. Almost all of those that have entered Western collections are caryatid stools, supported by single or occasionally double female figures. Stools are such potent emblems that they are often kept secretly in a different village from their possessor’s home, to diminish the possibility of their theft or desecration.As the receptacle for a king’s spirit, it is not primarily a functional seat as such. The infrequency with which these stools are viewed reinforces the idea that they are intended not for human eyes (at least not primarily), but for those of the spirit world”Roberts, M.N. and Roberts, A. F., 1996. Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History, Prestel, Munich