Prestige stool (Kuo fo) (possibly 1800s): Art, History and Details

Prestige stool (Kuo fo) (possibly 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Bead-covered wooden stools and thrones are one of the most prevalent art forms among the various kingdoms and chiefdoms in the Cameroon Grassfields region. This example, once part of the royal treasury, belongs in the category of "travel stools," usually used in conjunction with more private, minor ceremonies and rituals at the palace. The leopard imagery confirms the object’s royal status. It alludes to the belief that the king could temporarily transform himself into this feared predator.

Object facts

• Title: Prestige stool (Kuo fo)
• Date: possibly 1800s
• Culture: Africa, Central Africa, Cameroon, Bandjoun Kingdom, Bamileke makers
• Type: Furniture and woodwork
• Technique: Wood, cotton, plant fiber, glass beads, and indigo
• Dimensions: Overall: 51 x 38 x 43 cm (20 1/16 x 14 15/16 x 16 15/16 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 2006.138

A detail from the museum

The beads on this stool were sewn on by hand. Look underneath the stool, however, and you can see commercially made printed fabric.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Biro, Yaëlle. 2018. “The Canon and Its Consequences : The Reception of Bamileke Tsesah Crests.” Tribal Art: 22 (2) No. 87 Spring 2018 Pages 118-131. Fig. 17 (ca. 1925 photograph by Frank Christol)
• Print: Windmuller-Luna, Kristen. "Sitting Pretty." Apollo Magazine, July/August 2023, pp. 60–65 Online: Windmuller-Luna, Kristen. "How a leopard stool from Cameroon got its spots." Apollo Magazine. July 3, 2023.
• Harter, Pierre. Arts anciens du Cameroun. Arnouville: Arts d'Afrique noire, 1986.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.