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Two Ashanti bronze bracelets, Kumasi region, Ghana.

The pair of bronze bracelets from the Kumasi region of Ghana belongs to the broader corpus of Akan metalwork associated with prestige, political authority, and bodily adornment within Ashanti society. Bronze and brass ornaments occupied an important position within the visual culture of the Ashanti kingdom, where finely cast regalia articulated rank, lineage affiliation, and participation in systems of courtly display centered on Kumasi, the historic capital of the Asante state. Worn on the wrists, forearms, or ankles according to type and status, such bracelets functioned simultaneously as personal adornment and as visible expressions of wealth, legitimacy, and social distinction.

Ashanti metal casting achieved exceptional technical refinement through the widespread use of the lost-wax process, a method allowing the production of highly detailed forms with considerable formal variation. Artisans attached to royal courts and specialized workshops developed sophisticated repertoires of geometric patterning, figurative motifs, and symbolic references derived from proverbs, political ideology, and cosmological thought. Even relatively restrained bracelets frequently encode concepts related to continuity, protection, fertility, and authority through rhythmic surface organization and controlled sculptural balance.

Within Akan visual systems, metal possessed meanings extending beyond material value alone. Gold, copper alloys, and other luminous substances were associated with vitality, permanence, and the spiritual substance of kingship. Although gold remained the most prestigious material in Ashanti regalia, bronze and brass ornaments circulated widely among court officials, military leaders, merchants, and members of elite lineages. Their durability and visual weight contributed to an aesthetic emphasizing composure, restraint, and dignified presence, qualities central to Ashanti conceptions of political and moral authority.

Bracelets from the Kumasi region often display an interplay between abstraction and symbolic condensation characteristic of Akan court arts more broadly. Repeated linear motifs, twisted forms, and volumetric emphasis may correspond to proverbial meanings intelligible within local systems of interpretation. Such ornaments should therefore not be understood as purely decorative objects but as participants in a larger communicative framework linking dress, gesture, hierarchy, and ceremonial performance. During public festivals, judicial assemblies, and royal processions, bodily regalia formed an essential component of political theater through which social order and dynastic continuity were materially enacted.

The historical prominence of Kumasi as a center of artistic production and political power further situates these bracelets within the legacy of the Asante empire, whose influence extended across large portions of present-day Ghana from the eighteenth century onward. Metal ornaments produced in the region reflect the integration of local craftsmanship, long-distance trade, and royal patronage into a highly developed courtly tradition that remains among the most extensively studied artistic cultures of West Africa.

References

Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds., Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Doran H. Ross, Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity (Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1998).

Evelyn S. Rattray, Ashanti (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923).

Robert Sutherland Rattray, Religion and Art in Ashanti (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927).

Tom Phillips, Africa: The Art of a Continent (Munich: Prestel, 1995).

Herbert M. Cole and Doran H. Ross, The Arts of Ghana (Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History, University of California, 1977).

Peter T. Mark, African Art (New York: Prentice Hall, 1990).

This description is made with AI. Despite careful individual review, the use of Artificial Intelligence may result in errors or inaccuracies in the description.

Height: 10 cm / 10 cm
Weight: 88 g / 88 g

Bronze - Fair condition

A bronze bracelets - Ashanti - Ghana  (No reserve price)

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