Exhibition and book: “Emblems of Power: Asafo Flags from Ghana” at the African Art Museum of the SMA Fathers

On now and through May at the African Art Museum of the SMA Fathers, Tenafly, New Jersey, the exhibition shows the Asafo flag collection of Mary and Paul Rosen and includes two very fine long banners. It is accompanied by a 100 page catalogue by Mary and Paul Rosen that features their photographs of Asafo posuban shrines and is a useful addition to the small group of books on the topic. Price for the catalogue is US$20 plus postage and it is available from Paul Rosen at ppr2001@med.cornell.edu .

Cloth of the Month: A Fante Asafo Frankaa

Asafo112 - Exceptional and interesting mid C20th Fante Asafo flag (frankaa)  illustrating the proverb "the spider (Ananse) was on the stool before God made the world."  Condition: has a number of very small rust holes. Measurement: 53ins x 33 ins, 135cm x 84cm.

Ananse (Anansi) is a key god in the religious mythology of the Akan peoples of Ghana (including the Fante) and related diaspora groups.  He is typically represented, as here, by a spider, the literal translation of the word ananse in the Akan language. Here he is associated with the wisdom and cunning of the gods and by virtue of the depiction seated on a chiefly stool, is claiming that wisdom for the chief. In Akan culture the stool is closely associated with the identity and persona of its owner during his life, and in many cases after the owners death his stool would be painted white and preserved as a focus of libations to the deceased ancestor  in an ancestral “stool room.” It is also the key embodiment of royal and chiefly identity and of royal regalia.

The most interesting feature of this flag is the way in which a specifically local Akan set of iconographic features is combined with other imagery apparently of a more global origin. Below the spider on it’s throne we see a crawling monkey like figure.

The function of this image in the interpretation of the flag remains obscure but in their caption to a very similar flag by the same artist, shown below, Adler and Barnard in their book Asafo ! African Flags of the Fante (Thames and Hudson, 1992, figure 42) suggest that the image is drawn from a popular print based on William Blake’s classic representation of King Nebuchadnezzar.

This is certainly an intriguing idea, and anyone who has listened to the radio in Ghana would not under estimate the extent of reference to even more obscure biblical figures, but I would be curious to see the source of this link in a popular print.

By the same token the depiction of the figure holding up the world may perhaps be drawn from a print depiction of Greek god Atlas.

What are we to make of the similarity between our flag and the one in the Adler collection, below ?

Each flag artist developed a personal style within the overall expectation set by the format. Several of these artists were identified and discussed in the earliest published research on the tradition by Doran Ross in his small book: Fighting with Art: Appliqued Flags of the Fante Asafo (UCLA, 1979) from which most subsequently published information has been drawn. Close attention to genuine flags allows one to identify individual styles and hands, and within that it was not unusual for an artist to repeat a design that either he or his patrons felt had been particularly successful and admired.

Click on the photos to enlarge. Click here to visit our updated gallery of Asafo flags for sale.

"Fanti Women in Full Dress"

Vintage postcard: "Fanti Women in Full Dress" Photographer Jacob Vitta, Takwa, Ghana, circa 1910

Fante Asafo Flag details

To view the complete flags please visit the newly updated gallery on our website here.

More on “The Fashionable Hair”–style on Africa’s west coast in the 1900s

In a post last month I looked at a series of early postcards by the African photographer Arkhurst showing images of women’s dress and hair styles on Africa’s west coast, the region stretching from Nigeria up to Sierra Leone, in the early 1900s. Since so many people enjoyed seeing them, today I have brought together another group of postcards from the same era, this time by other photographers, showing similar fashions. All photos author’s collection, click to enlarge.

“Gold Coast, Fanti Woman” – postcard circa 1900, photographer “W.S. Johnston & Sons, Art Photographers, Freetown, Sa Leone.”

The above two photos “Gold in evidence gold coast Type” and “Gold Coast Beauty” are a rare instance of two views from the same sitting. Photographer “Photoholm – Lagos” circa 1900.

“Fantee-women” published by L. Pagenstecher & Co, Sekondi. circa 1900.

“Accra” – photographer and publisher unknown. circa 1900.

“Sekondi – Fantee Woman” photographer and publisher unknown. circa 1900.

“Congo. Femme Acra” photographer and publisher unknown. circa 1900.

For a discussion of this kind of image in the wider context of the history of photography in Africa I can recommend the book Photography and Africa by Erin Haney (reaktion books, 2010.)

Asafo Company Banner–over 5 metres long

Superb and dramatic Asafo company banner, made for the Number 2 Company in the village of Otuamkesi. The style suggests the banner was made around mid C20th, probably in a workshop in the village of Saltpond or Kromantse.  Depicts dramatic battle scenes of decapitation and mutilation as a warning to the enemies of the Company.

These long banners are very rare - this is only the second I have collected. They were made as a public demonstration of prosperity by a wealthy Company, and the longest examples were many times larger than this. Condition is good, with minor losses to the border and two places where small tears have been sewn up.  Details and more Asafo flags in our gallery here

Fante Asafo Flag–new update

Charming old flag with a car and two men in front of a road block / barrier with a sign reading "Road Close."  Background is felt. Good condition, minor marks.  Dates from circa 1930 - 50s.  Details and other flags in our gallery here.

Wearing African Textiles-part 6: an Ewe woman’s cloth

Vintage postcard, “Fantee women”, mailed 1904. The Fante, who live along the coast of Ghana to the west of Accra, do not weave themselves, but wore a wide variety of textiles locally imported from the Ewe and Asante, as well as European and Indian made fabrics. Here the lady seated at front right wears a cloth woven by a male Ewe weaver in what today is the eastern Volta region of Ghana. This type of Ewe cloth with groups of three weft face blocks rather than two, seems to be more typical of the C19th. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Ewe woman’s size cloth, circa 1900.

Our current selection of vintage Ewe cloths is online here.

More Asafo Flags on our website

More images, details and pricing here

Fante Asafo Flags on display in Genoa

As part of the exhibition “The Wonders of Africa: African Art from Italian Collections” that opens today at the Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, sixteen exceptional Fante Asafo flags will be on display until 5 June 2011. Drawn from an important private collection, this selection highlights the artistry of Fante flagmakers working in the first half of the twentieth century. Please do not reproduce the images below without permission.

There is an excellent publication “Asafo” by Federico Carmignani that illustrates the collection and introduces new research. Text is in English and Italian. Available from the publishers here.

If you are interested in collecting Asafo flags please take a look at my earlier post on real and fake flags here and the selection in our gallery here.

Fante Asafo Flags at Christie’s Paris, June 15th.

	LOT 60, SALE 5599, PARIS Estimate: €4,000 - €6,000 ($4,922 - $7,383)
	LOT 61, SALE 5599, PARIS Estimate:€4,000 - €6,000 ($4,922 - $7,383)
	LOT 62, SALE 5599, PARIS Estimate: €4,000 - €6,000 ($4,922 - $7,383)

Featuring these three flags from a major European collection, this sale will be an important test of interest in Asafo flags at a major auction house after the new and dramatically higher prices they realised at Sotheby’s in the McAlpine Collection auctions in 2006 and 2007.

Fante Asafo Flag gallery returns

Our gallery of Fante Asafo flags is back online here after some months hiatus. We now have a superb selection of genuine flags drawn in part from a major private collection assembled in the 1980s and early 90s, and in part from our own contacts in Ghana over recent years. For information on distinguishing these scarce authentic flags from the modern copies widely available on the net see my earlier post here.

Fante Asafo Flags - real or fake? - old or new ? - part two

A genuine Fante Asafo flag from our gallery, age circa 1920-40. Illustrates the proverb "we control the rooster and the clock bird", i.e. we are so strong that we can even control time.

So how do we tell a real authentic flag from a fake ? What do we mean by fake in this context ? In African art circles there is a widely accepted (albeit intellectually problematic) definition of authenticity. An authentic object is one which was made for local use and which received local use before being sold. An object that was made specifically to be sold on the art market or tourist market is not considered to be authentic and except in exceptional cases will never have any significant monetary value however nice it looks. Both the condition and the design of flags provide useful indications of age and authenticity. Flags that have received local use over any significant length of time show signs of that use such as small marks, holes, stains, bleaching from the sun, colour run, damage to and curling of the tassels on the border etc. Contrary to what some dealers in the Accra tourist market hope, leaving a new flag on the roof for a few days in the rainy season does not closely mimic the effect of local use, it just makes a new flag look dusty and rained on. Old fabric has a different look and feel from new that is extremely hard to fake. So luckily if you look carefully it is very easy to distinguish new flags from old.

Turning to the design, the first important point to note is that contrary to what is often asserted the use of a version of the British Union flag in the corner (the canton) does NOT mean that the flag was made before Ghanaian independence in 1957. Clearly a Ghana flag indicates a date after 1957 when it was adopted, but the reverse is not true. There could be a number of reasons why locally used flags were still ordered with the Union Jack canton, most obviously to replace an important old flag that was damaged beyond use. Moreover the flags made in the last decade for sale in the Accra art market almost invariably have the British flag.

This is an authentic, well made and designed post-Independence flag from the collection of the Textile Museum, Washington. It illustrates the boast " We can carry water in a basket using a cactus as a head cushion" i.e. "we can do the impossible."

Genuine flags were individually ordered, usually from a professional flag maker, by Asafo society officers, to mark their promotion to a higher rank, and the design was a carefully thought out project intended to communicate a specific saying or to mark a particular historical event. As a result most authentic flags have a design coherence, graphic sensibility, and visual impact that is immediately apparent. On the other hand when a dealer places a bulk order for ten pieces to be delivered as soon as possible, the result is usually slapdash workmanship, meaningless designs or poor copies, and a resulting lack of visual impact. I am not going to post one of these but a quick search on Google or Ebay will bring up numerous examples.

One final clue is to look at the price. Authentic old flags are now very hard to source and sell internationally for thousands of dollars. Flags that are for sale for a few hundred dollars are very unlikely to be old...

Buying new flags, providing you know that they are new, and you are paying the right new price for them, gives much needed income to very poor people in Ghanaian villages. There is nothing wrong with new flags as such, they become "fakes" when someone sells them as old. Most are poorly made but if you look carefully and choose examples that are well designed and well made your purchase will also encourage the continuation of old traditions of artistry and skill. There are still some flag makers doing good work and more sales would encourage them to continue. Below is a fine new flag I found while researching this post - more here

Fante Asafo Flags - real or fake? - part one

A high percentage of the Fante Asafo flags for sale on the net are recently made copies or "fakes." Today's post (a flag from a private collection in Italy, circa 1930-40s) is a quick reminder of how wonderful genuine flags from the Fante Asafo societies can be. I am working on a longer post on this subject but in the meantime for further info see here and here..