The Manhyia Palace Museum has received 130 gold and art objects from South Africa and Britain to bolster its collection of Asante heritage artefacts that date back to the 1870s.
The items, comprising gold and bronze artworks crafted in Kumasi and other parts of the Asante Kingdom, were presented to Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II at the palace and its museum.
Ranging from 45 to 160 years old, the pieces illustrate governance systems in Asante villages and towns, as well as the socio-economic significance of gold in the kingdom’s history.
Of the total, 110 objects originate from the AngloGold Ashanti collection in South Africa, formerly part of the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva.
Acquired by Swiss collector Josef Mueller starting in 1904 and purchased by AngloGold Ashanti in 2000, these items were restituted following direct intervention by the Asantehene earlier this year. This brings the total restituted pieces from the original Geneva collection to 140, housed in the museum’s contemporary art gallery.
Prior to the handover, the Asantehene expressed gratitude to Stuart Bailey, Chief Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Officer of AngloGold Ashanti, during a visit by Bailey and other officials, including Samuel Boakye Pobee, Managing Director of the Obuasi Mine, and former Obuasi MP Edward Ennin.
“Though AngloGold Ashanti purchased the objects at open markets, they still thought it appropriate to give back to the source from which they were taken,” the Asantehene stated.
The remaining 20 objects come from Britain, donated by 86-year-old art historian and curator Hermione Waterfield.
A veteran of Christie’s auction house in London since 1961, Waterfield established the Tribal Art Department in 1971. Her donation includes a 46-inch wooden fontomfrom drum looted from the palace during the 1900 siege of Kumasi, known as the Yaa Asantewaa War, by British Colonial Officer Sir Cecil Hamilton Armitage, who later served as Governor of The Gambia.
Waterfield inherited the drum and also owned 14 gold weights acquired between 1967 and 1973, including from Christie’s auctions.
According to Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Historian and Director of the Manhyia Palace Museum, the donation further enriches the museum’s holdings with works from Ghanaian and African masters such as Ablade Glover, El Anatsui, Ato Delaquis, Nee-Owoo, Anthony Kwame Akoto, Vincent Koffi, and Edwin Kwasi Bodjawah.
Agyeman-Duah highlighted the influence of the late British art historian and archaeologist Timothy Garrard, authority on West African metal and goldsmith arts, who resided in Kumasi, Accra, and Bouaké in Ivory Coast.
Together with Waterfield, Garrard shaped understandings of gold and bronze collecting and manufacturing processes. Among Waterfield’s items is a renowned 1980 brass self-portrait of Garrard on his motorbike in Kumasi, crafted by Yaw Amankwa.
Agyeman-Duah signed deaccession papers with Waterfield in London last October.