"I found that European visitors had all these things collected in their museum, to show them as exhibits. But the point that interests me is this: these artifacts of culture shouldn't be allowed to sit in the museum as lifeless things. We should read meaning into them so that people will know that in pre-literate societies, sentiments are expressed in proverbs-on walls, in wood, rocks and in goldweights." (Daniel Koo Nimo Amponsah, 2001)
The Asante language is rich in proverbs. Miniature sculptures, or goldweights, demonstrate how metaphoric speech once fit into daily Asante life. Each sculpture is associated with one or more verbal sayings or proverbs.
When the Asante empire reached its height in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Asante were trading vast quantities of gold. Asante goldweights were created to balance scales for weighing gold dust and nuggets. Although goldweights ceased to be used in trade by 1905, an industry of producing replicas emerged and continues to the present.
Cast brass (cire perdue)
2 3/8 x 1 3/4 x 1/2 in. (6 x 4.4 x 1.2 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Ralph W. Nicholson
67.150
Now on view at the
Seattle Art Museum
Resources
Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back, Feb. 7 - May 19, 2002 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Oct. 2, 2004 - Jan. 2, 2005; Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Feb. 12 - June 19, 2005; Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Oct. 8, 2005 - Jan. 1, 2006; Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Jan. 27 - Apr. 30, 2006 [as African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke a Back]).
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Lessons from the Institute of Empathy, Mar. 31, 2018 - ongoing.
Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.
