This is the rating and price for Tchokwe Chair With Figurative Scenes, 1998

Description : ngundja Wood, hide height 35 1/4in (89.5cm) Finely carved with a chief figure with an elaborate headdress on the horizontal back panel, the horizontal struts on the lower section carved with human figures, monkeys and bats. PROVENANCE Private Collection, Portugal Sotheby's, New York, November 22, 1998, Lot 365 Private Collection, Florida 'Over the course of numerous encounters with European traders as early as the seventeenth century, Chokwe chiefs appropriated the design of certain types of Western artifacts. The seats of office, or thrones, of Chokwe chiefs, with backs, leather-covered seats, and decorative brass tacks, are modeled upon European chairs. The decoration of the chair, however, remains distinctly Chokwe in style. The elaborate figurative scenes depicted on this and other seats of office are designed as symbolic microcosms of life and represent the breadth of a leader's concerns and responsibilities... ...The rows of figures along the stretchers at the base of the chair are carved representations of scenes from everyday life...These quotidian scenes are universally identifiable to the king's constituency and serve as a juxtaposition to the ritual events depicted at the summit of the chair. The overall organization of these scenes creates a united visual narrative emphasizing the social harmony and continuity that is ultimately achieved through following the enlightened leadership of the chair's owner, namely, the chief. The Chokwe kingdom rose to power during the late nineteenth century in the broad expanse of open savanna in the southern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Angola. As the Chokwe population expanded, they eventually conquered the previously dominant Lunda empire, which declined after the abolition of the slave trade in the 1830s. The Chokwe peoples thrived primarily because of the profitable trade of ivory, wax, and rubber with the Portuguese. Chokwe chairs are among the few African objects not carved from a single piece of wood, but are instead assembled in parts.'(Metropolitan Museum of Art, WEB, nd)
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