Bracelet

20th century

Fifteenth century Europeans were impressed by the use of gold from the moment they landed in West Africa. By 1502, reports indicate that fifteen ships a year were reported to sail away with collections of gold ornaments. Over the next four centuries virtually all the ornaments were melted down; very few exceptions survived. As the gold trade diminished in the nineteenth century, the royal ornaments owned by enstooled leaders were not for sale. Any attempt to steal them was a breach of property rights and cause for immediate destooling. Goldsmiths stepped up production of gold ornaments in the late 1920s and again around 1935 when Asantehene Prempeh II was enstooled. It appears that the majority of the gold ornaments purchased by Katherine White came from this revival period.

Known as babadua, these bracelets refer to the proverb: "A plantation of babadua never stops spreading." Badadua, a tall straggling shrub both tough and resilient, is used for house building and thatching. Queen mothers often wore such bracelets to honor their tenacity and fertility.

Gold beads

4 1/8 x 3 1/2 in. (10.5 x 8.9 cm)

Gift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

81.17.428

Photo: Paul Macapia

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles, California, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, The Arts of Ghana, Oct.11 - Dec. 11, 1977 (Minneapolis, Minnesota, Walker Art Center, Feb. 11 - Mar. 26, 1978; Dallas, Texas, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, May 3 - July 2, 1978).

Seattle, 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]). Text by Pamela McClusky. No cat. no., p. 109, reproduced pl. 62 (as Bracelet (babadua)).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Lessons from the Institute of Empathy, Mar. 31, 2018 - ongoing.

Published ReferencesMcClusky, Pamela. "Art of Africa." In Selected Works, pp. 35-52. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1991; p. 42, reproduced.

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.

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