Stool with Cocoa-Pod Harvester

Among the Asante and related peoples of Ghana, stools belong to individuals and their iconography has personal, cultural, and political significance. Simple stools typically serve quotidian needs, while more elaborate stools are reserved for community leaders, chiefs, and office-holders. This work features a man chopping cocoa pods from a tree–a reference to Ghana’s thriving agricultural economy in the early to mid-20th century. Today, cocoa production in Ghana symbolizes the entrepreneurial spirit of early twentieth century West Africans who, with little help from the colonial government, established a flourishing cash crop through their own enterprise, capital, technology, and skill. This stool is sculpted from a single piece of wood and depicts a highly refined figure removing the ripe red and yellow cocoa pods from the tree. The smooth surface of the sculpture, in addition to its clean lines, reveals a modern sensibility towards the expression of West African ingenuity.