Goldweight in the Form of a Geometric Shape

Arts of Africa

18th/19th century

Asante or related Akan-speaking peoples
Ghana
Coastal West Africa

Brass-cast weights like this one were produced using the lost-wax technique and used for economic transactions that involved gold. The Akan and Akan-related people traded gold with Islamized merchants from the West African interior and North Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans. Akan artists employed both abstract symbols and figural motifs in these miniature brass castings. It is generally accepted that the designs were intended to communicate a personal or collective meaning. This weight takes an abstract form of a central circle with projecting coiled elements on each axis. One side appears to have a few protuberances missing, perhaps the result of an attempt to balance the scale during an economic trade.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Asante
Title: Goldweight in the Form of a Geometric Shape
Place: Ghana (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1700–1899
Medium: Copper alloy
Dimensions: 1.6 × 4.9 × 5.6 cm (3 × 1 15/16 × 2 3/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman
Reference Number: 2007.593
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Muriel Kallis Newman (died 2008), Chicago, Ill., by 1980; given to the Art Institute, 2007.

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