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Goldweight with a Geometric Design
Asante (Ghana; Coastal West Africa)
18th/19th century
- Medium
- Copper alloy
- Classification
- Decorative Arts
- Dimensions
- 1.3 × 1.3 × 0.7 cm (1/2 × 1/2 × 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Ghana
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Africa
- Credit line
- Gift of the Britt Family Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Akan gold weights depict both figural and abstract forms. They were cast by the Akan and Akan-related people of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire and used for weighing gold dust from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The earliest forms—like this example—were based on abstract motifs, reflecting the Islamic influence on the gold trade prior to the arrival of the Portuguese in the 1470s.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
