Antique Ivory Coast Wooden Senufo Wash Stool

A renowned object, the Senufo stool has become a staple in modern design. The Casa Berbere edit is selected based on unique features including coloration, shape, refinement and perfect imperfections. This special example of the genre, measuring at 25.5" wide, 18.5" deep and 18.5" high, is unique in the lighter tonality of the coloring. The almost pale grey makes this particular stool singularly appropriate for nearly every home and color scheme.

The Senufo stool is ensconced in the cultural history and traditional design of the Senufo tribes in Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana. Local legend portends that the Senufo Stool (colloquially called the “Golden Stool”) floated down from the sky and landed on the lap of Osei Tutu, the first Ahanti king, who unified the Ghanaian people in the 17^th Century. Locals maintain the very soul of the nation resides in the stool.

In modern parlance, the seraphic stool adds an organic if brutal touch to otherwise Spartan minimal interiors – distinct traits that have emboldened their considerable regard among design cognoscente. Made in the late 19^th and early 20^th Century, the selection of Senufo stools in the Casa Berbere collection were found in the Cote d’Ivoire and define the spaces they inhabit without dominating them.

Perhaps that has something to do with their unabashedly functional use. Traditionally, the stools have been used by Senufo people as washing stools, set by the riverside to provide an unexpectedly comfortable perch from which to clean sullied textiles. The stools are made from a single piece of wood, and each one hand-carved and utterly singular.