Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content
Seattle Art Museum (SAM)
menu

Throne

Photo: Paul Macapia

Throne

Carvers of the Grasslands watched British and French colonial officers preside from armchairs imported from Europe. They created versions for their own royal leaders, imbued with ominous intensity. Above, chameleons are symbolic of the ruler's ability to transform into other creatures and to dwell in alternate levels of reality. Below, a figure extends a neck of large proportions to peer over a skull. The European chair has been infused with subtle rebellion to make its loyalties clear.
Wood
36 1/2 x 20 3/4 in. (92.7 x 52.7 cm)
Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
81.17.721
Photo: Paul Macapia
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles, California, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, African Art in Motion: Icon and Act, Jan. 20 - Mar. 17, 1974 (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, May 5 - Sept. 22, 1974). Text by Robert Farris Thompson. No cat. no., pp. 86-87, reproduced pl. 116.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back, Feb. 7 - May 19, 2002 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Oct. 2, 2004 - Jan. 2, 2005; Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Feb. 12 - June 19, 2005; Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Oct. 8, 2005 - Jan. 1, 2006; Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Jan. 27 - Apr. 30, 2006 [as African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke a Back]). Text by Pamela McClusky. No cat. no., p. 51, reproduced pl. 28.


Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM