Framed: 210.8 x 302.3 x 5 cm (83 x 119 x 1 15/16 in.)
Type:
Textile and Fiber Arts
Geography:
Ghana
Date:
Mid-late 19th century
Label Text:
Historically Asante royalty wore adinkra, large wrappers with stamped patterns, only during periods of mourning. Though still worn in times of grief, adinkra cloths recently have become increasingly fashionable at social festivities and nonfunerary functions.
The artist produced the pattern on this adinkra by first drawing the border and cross lines with a tool resembling a comb, creating a grid of rectangular fields. In each rectangle and along the borders of the grid, the artist stamped a single symbol or group of symbols associated with royalty, leadership and government. Stamps were made of dried gourd, cut and shaped to produce the desired symbol.
The central block of this adinkra contains a double curve representing a ram's horn and symbolizing leadership and royalty. Other symbols associated with royalty are three concentric circles, signifying the eternal nature of Asante kingship; eagle's talons, representing the coiffure of the queen's attendant; and the double dono drum played during royal processions. Government and leadership are represented by two versions of the two-storied house or the king's castle, two versions of a chain alluding to prisoners of war and slavery, and an executioner's knife, a symbol of justice.
More than 150 distinct design symbols used in adinkra cloths have been identified, although with recent innovations, there may be as many as 300. The earliest wrappers utilized only nine stamped symbols; some of these are still in use today. Nearly every symbol is a close visual expression of its name.
The term adinkra means "to employ or make use of" or "a message." It also connotes separation or leave taking. This cloth was worn by Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I on the day the British deposed him in January 1896. Prempeh had successfully resisted British demands to relinquish Asante sovereignty for several years, but his alliance with Samory Touré, a dynamic Muslim warrior who had conquered large regions of Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone, led to punitive action by the British. Prempeh and his followers were arrested and exiled for 28 years, first to Sierra Leone and then to the Seychelles. Prempeh returned to Ghana in 1924 and ruled as chief of the capital city of Kumasi until his death in 1931. Throughout this period, the Asante peoples recognized him as their Asantehene (sovereign).
Description:
White cloth wrapper with brownish black stamped patterns in thirty-five rectangular panels.
Provenance:
Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I, -- to 1897
W. Nicholson, Bradford, England and Lagos, Nigeria, acquired Sierra Leone, 1897
James Freeman, Kyoto, 1983
Exhibition History:
Caravans of Gold Fragments in Time, Block Museum of Art, Evanston, IL, January 26, 2019–July 21, 2019; The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada, September 21, 2019–February 23, 2020; Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., July 16, 2021 – February 27, 2022
African Cosmos: Stellar Arts, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., June 20-December 9, 2012; Newark Museum, February 26-August 11, 2013; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, August 23-November 30, 2014; Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, Atlanta, January 31-June 21, 2015 (exhibited at NMAfA)
Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Art, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, May 9- August 26, 2007; Fowler Museum at University of California, Los Angeles, October 14, 2007-February 17, 2008
A King and His Cloth: Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., January 29-March 23, 1997
Published References:
Crystal Productions. 2012. Art Activities. Carpinteria, California: Crystal Productions.
Fortune, Leasa Farrar. 1997. Adinkra: The Cloth That Speaks. Exhibition booklet. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, pp. 24-25, no. 17, front and back cover.
Kreamer, Christine Mullen. 2003. " A Tribute to Roy Sieber: Part 2." African Arts 36 (2), p. 23, no. 26.
Kreamer, Christine, Mary Nooter Roberts, Elizabeth Harney and Allyson Purpura. 2007. Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Art. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution; Milan: 5 Continents Editions, pp. 126-128, no. 11.1.
Kreamer, Christine, Mary Nooter Roberts, Elizabeth Harney and Allyson Purpura. 2007. "Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Art." African Arts 40 (3), p. 88, no. 25.
National Museum of African Art. 1988. The Permanent Collection of the National Museum of African Art, Large-Type Edition. Museum brochure. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.
National Museum of African Art. 1999 (?). Images of Power and Identity: Selections from the Permanent Collection. Exhibition brochure. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.
National Museum of African Art. 1999. Selected Works from the Collection of the National Museum of African Art. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, pp. 58-59, no. 36.
Stokes, Deborah. 2012. African Cosmos: Stellar Arts Family Guide. Exhibition booklet. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, p. 9.
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