A gold leaf figure seated on a stool and a sword handle. Ivory Coast, Akan. 20th century. One: 15 1/4"l, 7"l.
Provenance: Inventory and Collection from the Estate of Merton D. Simpson.
Catalog Notes: Gold leaf that is closer to the kind used by European guilders is to be seen among the Akan peoples in the Ivory Coast, such as the Baule. There is less gold to be won there, so very thin leaf is glued on Dr. Martha J. Ehrlich
Gold working techniques such as lost-wax casting and methods of covering an object with gold are of considerable antiquity among the Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. They were probably introduced by Mande-speaking traders from the north during the Akan-Mande gold trade before European contact, although Akan techniques for the application of sheet gold to wood or other support material may be local inventions.
The earliest European reports indicate that gold-working was already well-established; many describe cast gold ornaments and the English trader John Lock noted "foresleeves of beaten gold" worn on the bare arms of wealthy Akan women at the coast in 1554 (Garrard: 107). In 1673, Wilhelm Mueller reported the regalia of a coastal Akan leader as being covered with "fine beaten gold" (Garrard: 108). The Golden Stool itself is composed entirely of thick gold plates and is hollow, but is certainly based upon a wood prototype; it is probably safe to assume that the original wood carving disappeared long ago, leaving a substantial gold shell. Asante tradition dates the stool to the formation of the Asante state, around 1700.
By 1817, the English diplomat T. E. Bowdich noted some window frames "cased with thin gold" in Asantehene Osei Bonsu's Kumasi palace (Bowdich: 57), while the royal musical instruments were "cased in gold, about the thickness of cartridge paper" (Bowdich: 38--39). Lavish Asante use of sheet gold over wood or leather continued until after 1874 and the English defeat of Asantehene Kofi Kakari, though after that date less of it is to be found, and it is often done in thinner metal.
It is really proper to describe much Asante "gold leaf" as "gold sheet" because it is often as thick as a thin sheet of paper--many times the thickness of European gold leaf--and is consequently far easier to handle. It is often found in rectangular pieces about an inch and a half long and three-quarters of an inch wide, made locally. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was attached to a wood support with tiny staples made of gold wire, but sometime after 1950 European glues were used for thinner gold coverings. Akan peoples of the Ivory Coast did not use staples; gold coverings on wood or leather were much thinner and were glued on, reflecting the lesser amount of gold available there. However, the gold "leaf" is still thicker than European gold leaf and is produced locally, by hand. Dr. Martha J. Ehrlich
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Bowdich, T. E. : "Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee"; London: 1819
Garrard, T. F. : "Akan Weights and the Gold Trade"; London and New York: Longman, 1980