Disk Pendant (akrafokɔnmu) (1800s): Art, History and Details

Disk Pendant (akrafokɔnmu) (1800s) 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 typical of pre-colonial examples. Gold ornament making ceased until 1924; court officials now wear large discs.

Object facts

• Title: Disk Pendant (akrafokɔnmu)
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Africa, West Africa, Ghana, Asante Empire/ Kingdom, member of the goldsmiths’ guild
• Type: Jewelry
• Technique: Gold
• Dimensions: Diameter: 11 cm (4 5/16 in.)
• Collection: African Art
• Department: African Art
• Accession number: 1952.84

A detail from the museum

Gold miners from the Akan region once mined gold to make local objects like this and to supply gold for trade across trans-Saharan routes and into places as far away as Europe.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ratton, Charles. « Les bijoux en forme de disque etc. » Special Issue, Présence Africaine : L'Art Nègre 10-11. Paris : Aux Editions du Seuil (1951)
• Jopling, Carol F., ed. Art and Aesthetics in Primitive Societies. NY: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1971: 66.
• Simms, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006: 32.

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.