Disk Pendant (akrafokɔnmu) (1800s, before 1871; pin added later): Art, History and Details

Disk Pendant (akrafokɔnmu) (1800s, before 1871; pin added later) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Gold discs dangling on the chests of Akan state officials and elites showed their rank and duties. Worn by these akrafo (“soul people”) since the 1800s, they are often linked to kradware, officials who represent and purify (“wash”) the king’s soul. To make them, goldsmiths cast or flattened gold. Muslim North African gold coins likely inspired their form and material, while concentric water rings influenced their composition. This small disc is a typical pre-colonial example. Gold ornament making ceased until 1924; court officials now wear large discs.

Object facts

• Title: Disk Pendant (akrafokɔnmu)
• Date: 1800s, before 1871; pin added later
• Culture: Africa, West Africa, Ghana, Asante Empire/ Kingdom, member of the goldsmiths’ guild
• Type: Jewelry
• Technique: Gold
• Dimensions: Overall: 7 x 7.6 x 1.6 cm (2 3/4 x 3 x 5/8 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1944.290

A detail from the museum

An 1886 letter indicates that the English doctor Harry T. Reilly received this disk as a gift from three Asante chiefs for providing them with medical care while they were imprisoned in Cape Coast Castle in the aftermath of the Second Anglo-Ashanti war (1863-64).

Collection credit

James Albert Ford Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foote, Helen S. “A Gold Ornament from Ashanti.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 31, no. 10 (December 1944): p. 180-181.
• Coe, Ralph T. The Imagination of Primitive Man. Catalogue of the exhibition. Kansas City, KS: The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, 1962: no. 34.
• The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, December 1944:180-181, image p. 178

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.