Inventa International
Whenever reference is made to a work of art named “The Thinker” in Angola, most people will think of the statuette “The Chokwe Thinker” (“O Pensador”).
The history of “O Pensador”, also known as “Samanhonga” or “Kuku”, goes back to 1932, when the Swiss painter and ethnologist Théodore Delachaux found the statuette in a “divination basket” (a basket containing many small objects used for the diviner to made prophecies at request of his clients) during an expedition to Angola. It is a wooden figurine, representing an elder, woman or man, in a position of deep meditation.
The gracious and inspiring position of the elder encouraged Delachaux, influenced by August Rodin’s sculpture “Le Penseur”, to name it “The Thinker”.