A wooden sculpture - Dan - Côte d'Ivoire (No reserve price)
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Selected by Dimitri André
Holds a postgraduate degree in African studies and 15 years experience in African art.
Estimate € 230 - € 270
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The wooden chair, titled “A wooden sculpture”, is made of wood, measures 25 cm high and is attributed to the Dan people of Côte d’Ivoire.
AI-assisted summary
Description from the seller
Chaise Dan – Traditional wooden chair with a high back
Origin: Man region, western Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
Cultural Attribution: Dan, attributed
Material: Wood, carved and joined, with a dark brown to blackish patina of use
Dating: Not certain
Description
This wooden chair from the Man region in western Côte d’Ivoire is characterized by remarkable structural clarity, a reduced architectural design language, and an expressive, dark-patinated surface. The low chair consists of an almost rectangular seat, four short, sturdy legs, and a high, open backrest, the upper end of which is formed by a long, slightly curved crossbar. The seat is crafted as a flat, nearly rectangular board and is framed laterally by two sturdy, elongated wooden elements. These have rounded, slightly projecting ends, which lend the chair a characteristic sculptural articulation. The four short legs are particularly striking, consisting of stacked, nearly cylindrical or conically rounded sections. Their squat design conveys an impression of stability while simultaneously lending the chair an almost sculptural appearance. The backrest is supported by two slender, vertical posts that rise from the rear sections of the side seat frames. The space between them remains completely open. The upper crossbar has a gently irregular line and projects beyond the vertical posts on both sides. Its ends are accentuated by small, thickened finials. The entire construction demonstrates a careful balance between horizontal and vertical elements. The dark brown to blackish wood surface exhibits numerous abrasions, small indentations, and areas of lighter coloration. Warmer, reddish-brown wood tones are particularly noticeable at the edges of the seat and the projecting ends. These changes are consistent with prolonged use but do not allow for reliable dating. The way the individual components are joined suggests a meticulously crafted construction, the precise manufacturing technique of which cannot be fully determined from the photograph.
Cultural and Geographical Context
The Dan are among the most important ethnic groups in western Côte d’Ivoire and the adjacent northeastern part of Liberia. Their historical settlement areas extend across the forested mountains and hills of the present-day Tonkpi region, whose main urban center is the city of Man. The cultural history of this region is characterized by close relationships between the Dan, Mano, Wè, and other neighboring communities. The Dan are particularly known for their significant mask tradition and their sophisticated wood carving. In addition to masks and figurative representations, their material culture includes numerous carefully crafted everyday objects, whose forms can convey both practical and social significance. Seating occupies a special place within various West African societies, as it serves not only for physical rest but can also communicate notions of social rank, personal dignity, and public representation. The design of a chair can provide clues about its owner's social standing, its function within a community, or specific ceremonial contexts. For the Dan people, however, a distinction must be made between general West African concepts of seating and specifically documented local traditions. The present attribution to the Dan is based on its stated origin in the Man region. Without additional provenance information or reliable comparative pieces, it is impossible to determine whether the chair can be attributed to a specific local workshop or a particular social function.
Function and Social Significance
The chair's construction combines a low seat height with a comparatively high backrest. This combination distinguishes it from simple stools and gives it a more individualized form, designed for a specific sitting posture. The wide seat provides stable support, while the open backrest supports the body without visually weighing down the piece. The four short legs ensure a low-to-the-ground position, common in various West African residential and gathering settings. Whether the chair was originally used as everyday seating, as the personal property of a respected individual, or for special social occasions remains unclear. The careful design of the leg ends and side frame elements could indicate an aesthetic significance extending beyond purely functional use. It is also conceivable that the piece of furniture was valued as a precious personal item due to its construction and craftsmanship. However, no specific use in connection with initiatory societies, ancestral rituals, or political offices is documented for this particular object. Therefore, without further ethnographic evidence, the designation of it as a ceremonial or rank-related chair would not be justified.
Art Historical Analysis
From an art historical perspective, the chair possesses a remarkable sculptural independence. Its design is based on a clear architectural principle, in which a few structural elements are combined to form a balanced overall shape. The low, rectangular seat forms the horizontal center of gravity, while the two slender back supports create a distinct vertical movement. The long, gently curved crossbar completes this movement upwards and lends the piece a characteristic silhouette. The relationship between the solid, squat legs and the comparatively light backrest is particularly interesting. The legs appear almost as independent little sculptures, their superimposed rounded forms creating a rhythmic articulation. In contrast, the two back supports appear slender and understated. This deliberate differentiation of the components lends the chair a balanced tension between mass and lightness. The side frame elements have softly rounded ends, which complement the constructive character of the piece with a sculptural accentuation. The slightly irregular lines of the upper crossbeam underscore the handcrafted nature of the piece and prevent a strictly geometric effect. The significance of the open space between the seat and the backrest is also noteworthy. This forms an essential part of the overall composition and makes the backrest appear almost like an independent architectural frame. In the broader context of West African seating, the chair can be assigned to a tradition in which functional objects acquire a distinct aesthetic quality through careful proportioning, sculptural design, and material-specific surface treatment. However, a more precise stylistic classification within Dan woodcarving requires further comparative analysis.
The chair's significance is also noteworthy. Art Historical Appreciation
The exceptional artistic quality of this chair, attributed to the Dan people, lies in its combination of structural simplicity, sculptural balance, and material expressiveness. The low seat, sturdy legs, and open backrest form a clearly structured composition, whose effect arises primarily from the relationship between horizontal and vertical elements. The dark patinated wood surface lends the piece a warm, historically evolved appearance and reveals traces of its craftsmanship and potential use. The carefully crafted leg ends and the gently curved upper crossbar, in particular, give the chair its distinctive formal language. Within the context of the Dan people's material culture, the object illustrates the significance of artisanal design beyond the more familiar production of masks and figurines. Its aesthetic impact arises not from ornamental excess, but from a conscious focus on proportion, construction, and material. As a functional object with a pronounced sculptural presence, the chair represents a remarkable example of West African woodcarving. Its precise dating, its original social function, and a possible attribution to a specific workshop remain unclear without further documentation.
Literature
Eberhard Fischer and Hans Himmelheber: The Art of the Dan. Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 1976.
Hans Himmelheber: Negro Art and Negro Artists. Klinkhardt & Biermann, Braunschweig, 1960.
Christopher D. Roy: Art and Life in Africa. University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1992.
The aforementioned publications serve to provide a general art historical and ethnographic context for Dan culture and West African woodcarving. They do not, however, establish a direct publication of the present chair or definitively determine its original social function.
Copyright and Scientific Documentation
Some of the information and photographs have been generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and are based on published sources in ethnography, archaeology, and art history. Original texts and photographs may be protected by copyright. All rights held by the respective rights holders are reserved.
Inv. No. MAZ32628
Informant: Ouro
Seller's Story
Wolfgang Jaenicke’s engagement with African art did not begin in the field or the marketplace but in a quieter, more inward space—among papers, books, and objects that belonged to his father. The archive on Germany’s former colonies was not arranged to tell a single story; it suggested many. It invited scrutiny rather than reverence, and it taught Jaenicke early on that objects are never mute. They carry time inside them—fracture and continuity held in the same form—and they ask to be read as carefully as texts.
For more than a quarter century, Jaenicke has worked as a collector, dealer, and intermediary, though none of these terms quite captures the shape of his practice. What used to be grouped, too casually, under the heading of “Tribal Art” has never appeared to him as a sealed or historical category. It is, instead, a set of living traditions, constantly negotiating the present. His academic training—in ethnology, art history, and comparative law—provided a grammar. The language itself he learned elsewhere. In Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Ghana, knowledge emerged slowly, through repeated encounters that hardened into relationships, and through trust built not all at once but over years.
Mali became the gravitational center of this experience. Between 2002 and 2012, Jaenicke lived and worked in Bamako and Ségou, where he ran Tribalartforum, a gallery overlooking the Niger River. The space resisted easy chronology. Sculptures and ceramics shared the room with photography, and works by Malick Sidibé—images of Malian youth in the 1970s, self-assured and exuberant—hung alongside older ritual forms. The effect was not nostalgic but clarifying: past and present did not cancel each other out; they sharpened one another.
The war of 2012 ended this chapter abruptly, as wars tend to do. But it did not dissolve the work. Together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke regrouped in Lomé, closer to the places where many of the objects originated and to the routes they continue to travel. Since 2018, Berlin has become another point on this map. Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke now operates opposite Charlottenburg Palace, supported by a small team of specialists. Its focus rests, in particular, on West African bronzes and terracottas—materials shaped by earth and fire, and by forms of memory that resist easy translation.
What distinguishes Jaenicke’s practice is not only its geographical range but its internal tension. Fieldwork is paired with provenance research; commerce is treated as inseparable from responsibility. In collaboration with museums and scholarly initiatives, circulation is framed not as extraction but as an ethical process that remains unfinished. The aim is not to remove objects from the world and seal them off, but to keep them readable within it—to allow them to continue speaking, even as the conditions of their speech change.
------------
Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke is a Berlin-based gallery specializing in West African sculpture, bronzes, terracottas, masks, and contemporary African art. It is directed by Wolfgang Jaenicke, whose work combines collecting, dealing, provenance research, fieldwork, and archival documentation.
According to the gallery’s own account, Jaenicke studied ethnology, art history, and comparative law and has worked in the field of African art for more than twenty-five years. His activities developed through long-term engagement in countries including Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo. Rather than presenting African art as a closed historical category, he describes it as a continuing cultural tradition shaped by living communities and changing historical contexts.
A particularly important phase of his career was in Mali, where he lived and worked between roughly 2002 and 2012 in Bamako and Ségou. There he operated Tribalartforum, a gallery that combined historical African sculpture with contemporary African photography, including works by Malick Sidibé. The political and military crisis in Mali in 2012 led to the closure of this phase of activity.
Later, together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke continued working from Lomé, Togo, before establishing a gallery presence in Berlin near Charlottenburg Palace. The gallery places particular emphasis on West African bronzes, terracottas, Benin and Ife-related works, Nok sculpture, Dogon art, Baule sculpture, Senufo objects, and Yoruba material.
One distinctive aspect of Jaenicke’s public position is his repeated emphasis on provenance transparency and restitution debates. On several published object records, the gallery explicitly discusses issues surrounding export documentation, UNESCO conventions, ownership histories, and communication with scholars and restitution researchers. These statements reflect broader contemporary debates about the circulation of African cultural heritage, legality, collecting history, and museum acquisition practices.
The gallery maintains extensive online archives and catalogues documenting hundreds of African objects, including Benin and Ife bronzes, Nok terracottas, Dogon sculptures, Baule figures, Fon objects, Moba figures, and other West African material.
For researchers interested in the history of the African art trade, Jaenicke represents a later generation of dealers compared with figures such as John J. Klejman. Whereas Klejman belonged to the postwar New York market of the 1950s–1970s, Jaenicke’s work has been shaped by contemporary concerns with field documentation, provenance research, restitution discussions, digital archives, and direct engagement with West African networks and artists.
This text is based on AI Information
Chaise Dan – Traditional wooden chair with a high back
Origin: Man region, western Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
Cultural Attribution: Dan, attributed
Material: Wood, carved and joined, with a dark brown to blackish patina of use
Dating: Not certain
Description
This wooden chair from the Man region in western Côte d’Ivoire is characterized by remarkable structural clarity, a reduced architectural design language, and an expressive, dark-patinated surface. The low chair consists of an almost rectangular seat, four short, sturdy legs, and a high, open backrest, the upper end of which is formed by a long, slightly curved crossbar. The seat is crafted as a flat, nearly rectangular board and is framed laterally by two sturdy, elongated wooden elements. These have rounded, slightly projecting ends, which lend the chair a characteristic sculptural articulation. The four short legs are particularly striking, consisting of stacked, nearly cylindrical or conically rounded sections. Their squat design conveys an impression of stability while simultaneously lending the chair an almost sculptural appearance. The backrest is supported by two slender, vertical posts that rise from the rear sections of the side seat frames. The space between them remains completely open. The upper crossbar has a gently irregular line and projects beyond the vertical posts on both sides. Its ends are accentuated by small, thickened finials. The entire construction demonstrates a careful balance between horizontal and vertical elements. The dark brown to blackish wood surface exhibits numerous abrasions, small indentations, and areas of lighter coloration. Warmer, reddish-brown wood tones are particularly noticeable at the edges of the seat and the projecting ends. These changes are consistent with prolonged use but do not allow for reliable dating. The way the individual components are joined suggests a meticulously crafted construction, the precise manufacturing technique of which cannot be fully determined from the photograph.
Cultural and Geographical Context
The Dan are among the most important ethnic groups in western Côte d’Ivoire and the adjacent northeastern part of Liberia. Their historical settlement areas extend across the forested mountains and hills of the present-day Tonkpi region, whose main urban center is the city of Man. The cultural history of this region is characterized by close relationships between the Dan, Mano, Wè, and other neighboring communities. The Dan are particularly known for their significant mask tradition and their sophisticated wood carving. In addition to masks and figurative representations, their material culture includes numerous carefully crafted everyday objects, whose forms can convey both practical and social significance. Seating occupies a special place within various West African societies, as it serves not only for physical rest but can also communicate notions of social rank, personal dignity, and public representation. The design of a chair can provide clues about its owner's social standing, its function within a community, or specific ceremonial contexts. For the Dan people, however, a distinction must be made between general West African concepts of seating and specifically documented local traditions. The present attribution to the Dan is based on its stated origin in the Man region. Without additional provenance information or reliable comparative pieces, it is impossible to determine whether the chair can be attributed to a specific local workshop or a particular social function.
Function and Social Significance
The chair's construction combines a low seat height with a comparatively high backrest. This combination distinguishes it from simple stools and gives it a more individualized form, designed for a specific sitting posture. The wide seat provides stable support, while the open backrest supports the body without visually weighing down the piece. The four short legs ensure a low-to-the-ground position, common in various West African residential and gathering settings. Whether the chair was originally used as everyday seating, as the personal property of a respected individual, or for special social occasions remains unclear. The careful design of the leg ends and side frame elements could indicate an aesthetic significance extending beyond purely functional use. It is also conceivable that the piece of furniture was valued as a precious personal item due to its construction and craftsmanship. However, no specific use in connection with initiatory societies, ancestral rituals, or political offices is documented for this particular object. Therefore, without further ethnographic evidence, the designation of it as a ceremonial or rank-related chair would not be justified.
Art Historical Analysis
From an art historical perspective, the chair possesses a remarkable sculptural independence. Its design is based on a clear architectural principle, in which a few structural elements are combined to form a balanced overall shape. The low, rectangular seat forms the horizontal center of gravity, while the two slender back supports create a distinct vertical movement. The long, gently curved crossbar completes this movement upwards and lends the piece a characteristic silhouette. The relationship between the solid, squat legs and the comparatively light backrest is particularly interesting. The legs appear almost as independent little sculptures, their superimposed rounded forms creating a rhythmic articulation. In contrast, the two back supports appear slender and understated. This deliberate differentiation of the components lends the chair a balanced tension between mass and lightness. The side frame elements have softly rounded ends, which complement the constructive character of the piece with a sculptural accentuation. The slightly irregular lines of the upper crossbeam underscore the handcrafted nature of the piece and prevent a strictly geometric effect. The significance of the open space between the seat and the backrest is also noteworthy. This forms an essential part of the overall composition and makes the backrest appear almost like an independent architectural frame. In the broader context of West African seating, the chair can be assigned to a tradition in which functional objects acquire a distinct aesthetic quality through careful proportioning, sculptural design, and material-specific surface treatment. However, a more precise stylistic classification within Dan woodcarving requires further comparative analysis.
The chair's significance is also noteworthy. Art Historical Appreciation
The exceptional artistic quality of this chair, attributed to the Dan people, lies in its combination of structural simplicity, sculptural balance, and material expressiveness. The low seat, sturdy legs, and open backrest form a clearly structured composition, whose effect arises primarily from the relationship between horizontal and vertical elements. The dark patinated wood surface lends the piece a warm, historically evolved appearance and reveals traces of its craftsmanship and potential use. The carefully crafted leg ends and the gently curved upper crossbar, in particular, give the chair its distinctive formal language. Within the context of the Dan people's material culture, the object illustrates the significance of artisanal design beyond the more familiar production of masks and figurines. Its aesthetic impact arises not from ornamental excess, but from a conscious focus on proportion, construction, and material. As a functional object with a pronounced sculptural presence, the chair represents a remarkable example of West African woodcarving. Its precise dating, its original social function, and a possible attribution to a specific workshop remain unclear without further documentation.
Literature
Eberhard Fischer and Hans Himmelheber: The Art of the Dan. Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 1976.
Hans Himmelheber: Negro Art and Negro Artists. Klinkhardt & Biermann, Braunschweig, 1960.
Christopher D. Roy: Art and Life in Africa. University of Iowa, Iowa City, 1992.
The aforementioned publications serve to provide a general art historical and ethnographic context for Dan culture and West African woodcarving. They do not, however, establish a direct publication of the present chair or definitively determine its original social function.
Copyright and Scientific Documentation
Some of the information and photographs have been generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and are based on published sources in ethnography, archaeology, and art history. Original texts and photographs may be protected by copyright. All rights held by the respective rights holders are reserved.
Inv. No. MAZ32628
Informant: Ouro
Seller's Story
Wolfgang Jaenicke’s engagement with African art did not begin in the field or the marketplace but in a quieter, more inward space—among papers, books, and objects that belonged to his father. The archive on Germany’s former colonies was not arranged to tell a single story; it suggested many. It invited scrutiny rather than reverence, and it taught Jaenicke early on that objects are never mute. They carry time inside them—fracture and continuity held in the same form—and they ask to be read as carefully as texts.
For more than a quarter century, Jaenicke has worked as a collector, dealer, and intermediary, though none of these terms quite captures the shape of his practice. What used to be grouped, too casually, under the heading of “Tribal Art” has never appeared to him as a sealed or historical category. It is, instead, a set of living traditions, constantly negotiating the present. His academic training—in ethnology, art history, and comparative law—provided a grammar. The language itself he learned elsewhere. In Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Ghana, knowledge emerged slowly, through repeated encounters that hardened into relationships, and through trust built not all at once but over years.
Mali became the gravitational center of this experience. Between 2002 and 2012, Jaenicke lived and worked in Bamako and Ségou, where he ran Tribalartforum, a gallery overlooking the Niger River. The space resisted easy chronology. Sculptures and ceramics shared the room with photography, and works by Malick Sidibé—images of Malian youth in the 1970s, self-assured and exuberant—hung alongside older ritual forms. The effect was not nostalgic but clarifying: past and present did not cancel each other out; they sharpened one another.
The war of 2012 ended this chapter abruptly, as wars tend to do. But it did not dissolve the work. Together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke regrouped in Lomé, closer to the places where many of the objects originated and to the routes they continue to travel. Since 2018, Berlin has become another point on this map. Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke now operates opposite Charlottenburg Palace, supported by a small team of specialists. Its focus rests, in particular, on West African bronzes and terracottas—materials shaped by earth and fire, and by forms of memory that resist easy translation.
What distinguishes Jaenicke’s practice is not only its geographical range but its internal tension. Fieldwork is paired with provenance research; commerce is treated as inseparable from responsibility. In collaboration with museums and scholarly initiatives, circulation is framed not as extraction but as an ethical process that remains unfinished. The aim is not to remove objects from the world and seal them off, but to keep them readable within it—to allow them to continue speaking, even as the conditions of their speech change.
------------
Galerie Wolfgang Jaenicke is a Berlin-based gallery specializing in West African sculpture, bronzes, terracottas, masks, and contemporary African art. It is directed by Wolfgang Jaenicke, whose work combines collecting, dealing, provenance research, fieldwork, and archival documentation.
According to the gallery’s own account, Jaenicke studied ethnology, art history, and comparative law and has worked in the field of African art for more than twenty-five years. His activities developed through long-term engagement in countries including Mali, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo. Rather than presenting African art as a closed historical category, he describes it as a continuing cultural tradition shaped by living communities and changing historical contexts.
A particularly important phase of his career was in Mali, where he lived and worked between roughly 2002 and 2012 in Bamako and Ségou. There he operated Tribalartforum, a gallery that combined historical African sculpture with contemporary African photography, including works by Malick Sidibé. The political and military crisis in Mali in 2012 led to the closure of this phase of activity.
Later, together with Aguibou Kamaté, Jaenicke continued working from Lomé, Togo, before establishing a gallery presence in Berlin near Charlottenburg Palace. The gallery places particular emphasis on West African bronzes, terracottas, Benin and Ife-related works, Nok sculpture, Dogon art, Baule sculpture, Senufo objects, and Yoruba material.
One distinctive aspect of Jaenicke’s public position is his repeated emphasis on provenance transparency and restitution debates. On several published object records, the gallery explicitly discusses issues surrounding export documentation, UNESCO conventions, ownership histories, and communication with scholars and restitution researchers. These statements reflect broader contemporary debates about the circulation of African cultural heritage, legality, collecting history, and museum acquisition practices.
The gallery maintains extensive online archives and catalogues documenting hundreds of African objects, including Benin and Ife bronzes, Nok terracottas, Dogon sculptures, Baule figures, Fon objects, Moba figures, and other West African material.
For researchers interested in the history of the African art trade, Jaenicke represents a later generation of dealers compared with figures such as John J. Klejman. Whereas Klejman belonged to the postwar New York market of the 1950s–1970s, Jaenicke’s work has been shaped by contemporary concerns with field documentation, provenance research, restitution discussions, digital archives, and direct engagement with West African networks and artists.
This text is based on AI Information
Details
Ethnic group/ culture
Dan
Country of Origin
Côte d'Ivoire
Material
Wood
Sold with stand
No
Condition
Fair condition
Title of artwork
A wooden sculpture
Height
25 cm
Weight
800 g
Authenticity
Original/official
Sold by
GermanyVerified
protop
Rechtliche Informationen des Verkäufers
- Unternehmen:
- Jaenicke Njoya GmbH
- Repräsentant:
- Wolfgang Jaenicke
- Adresse:
- Jaenicke Njoya GmbH
Klausenerplatz 7
14059 Berlin
GERMANY - Telefonnummer:
- +493033951033
- Email:
- w.jaenicke@jaenicke-njoya.com
- USt-IdNr.:
- DE241193499
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