By 1905, Lozi king and artist, Lewanika, opened perhaps the first "Native Curios Shop" in Africa from which he sold art works to European and American museum representatives. This stool's elegant simplicity with the playful placement of its leopards illustrates the best in art from this era. Its feline imagery also suggests the stool functioned politically: Lewanika either gave it to an ally in a gesture of diplomacy, it was used in the court of a neighboring leader, or perhaps the king used it to assert visually his right to the throne after an 1885 coup. **to be paired with photograph of King Lewanika