Chair (Kiti Cha Enzi)
Swahili (Lamu, Kenya; Eastern and Southern Africa)
19th century
- Medium
- Wood, ivory, and cotton fiber
- Classification
- Furniture
- Dimensions
- 125.7 × 75.6 × 72.4 cm (49 1/2 × 29 3/4 × 28 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Kenya
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Africa
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by Marshall Field V
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This style of high-backed seat with bone and ivory inlay, known as a “chair of power” or “grandee’s chair” (kiti cha enzi), is a graphic reminder of the complex history of international trade and conquest in the region known as the Swahili Coast. As early as the first century, the region’s natural harbors invited exchange with partners in the Persian Gulf and Western India. Later the Portuguese, Omani, and British imposed their authority on its inhabitants. With each conquering state, newly imported goods and practices took root as symbols of authority and power among the Swahili elite. The upright form of the kiti cha enzichair bears strong resemblance to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century chairs imported from Portugal and Spain, as well as to Portuguese- and Spanish-influenced examples made in India. Comparisons have also been made with chairs from the Mamluk period (1250–1517) in Egypt. In any case, the Swahili version is clearly the result of foreign influences that have been artfully synthesized and reshaped by local artisans. Most such chairs in collections today date from the nineteenth century and were made in large, specialized workshops. They could be found…
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
