This is a antique hand carved wooden African six legged stool which was tribally made from a single piece of wood by the Nupe people of Nigeria, Africa. The African Nupe People live near the confluence of the Niger and Kaduna rivers in west-central Nigeria. The Nupe have lived along the banks of the Niger River since the 15th century and were conquered around 1830 by the Muslim Fulani people. Because of this most Nupe People have converted to the Muslim religion so that Nupe art reflects this conversion now being made up of more abstract designs which serve decorative purposes. Nupe art very rarely features animals and even rarer to see humans portrayed. Square and circular shaped stools with intricately carved geometric designs on the seats and sometimes hand painting which are supported by a varying number of separate conical legs like this one, are presented to brides by their grooms on their wedding day and are used throughout the brides life as a prestige object to be brought to special outings like market days, important gatherings, meetings and ceremonies.

This African antique Nupe tribal wooden stool is a very rare art piece which features two different paintings of white people, a white snake (symbolic tongue in cheek meaning perhaps!) and two hair combs. This Nupe African stool measures 45.20 inches around the circumference of the top of the seat and is 10 inches tall and 14.10 inches wide across the top. This piece weighs 10 pounds and 3 ounces. Pretty good tribally used antique rustic condition with a lot of wear to the wood on the top of the seat which includes a depression worn into the wood from more than a lifetime of wear and some paint loss. One leg has some wood loss to the foot. Sometimes these stools were painted more then once or even painted after they were very old.This specimen is very desirable and would make a fine addition to any African collection. I combine shipping on multiple items so be sure to check out my ebay store where I have thousands of items to browse through from Africa and beyond.