  About the Artwork
  
  
  This is one of only a handful of thrones by Olowe of Ise, a favorite artist of Yoruba kings. Its form merges an English royal throne and a cylindrical Yoruba royal stool. Visitors to the court would have seen the throne from the front, which bears images that communicate the prestige and power of the kingship, such as the royal orchestra singing his praises. Each armrests depicts a colonial officer being transported in a hammock, a reference to a British district commissioner’s visit to the Ikere palace in 1910. The rear of the throne shows women with elaborate coiffures holding their breasts in a traditional form of greeting, diviners, various palace functionaries, and servants transporting royal wealth under guard. The preponderance of women on the back of the throne may be Olowe’s way of alluding to them as the power behind every Yoruba throne.
From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)
  
  
  Title
  Chief&#039;s Throne
  
  
  Artwork Date
  20th century
  
  Artist
  Olówè of Isè
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  African
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  African
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
  Yoruba
  
  
  Medium
  Wood and pigment
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 56 5/16 × 23 3/16 × 19 11/16 inches (143 × 58.9 × 50 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Furniture
  
  
  Department
  African Art
  
  
  Credit
  Museum Purchase, Ernest and Rosemarie Kanzler Foundation Fund, and with funds from Robert B. Jacobs
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  2008.47
  
  
  Copyright
  Copyright Not Evaluated
