ClassificationsAfrican Art

Asen

Place CreatedOuidah, Benin, Africa

CultureFon

Date20th Century

MediumIron, steel, wood, paint, sacrificial material

Credit LineEx coll. William S. Arnett

Dimensions64 x 17 in. (162.6 x 43.2 cm)

Object number1999.003.002

Label TextAn asen is an iron altar honoring a dead person in the Fon culture of West Africa. The family of the deceased would periodically place food offerings upon it or pour libations over it.

This asen was made in the coastal city of Ouidah, infamous as a slave port for France, Britain, Holland, and Portugal. However, by the end of the slave trade in the 19th century its most important inhabitants were Afro-Brazilians, freed slaves returning from the Portuguese plantations of Brazil.

The Brazilian influence is seen in the tableau of objects upon the platform. The commemorated person sits on an ornate chair instead of an African stool, wearing a European stovepipe hat (a status symbol indicating the wealth and standing of the deceased). Christian crosses suggest a familiarity with Portuguese Catholicism which now coexists alongside older Fon beliefs shown here as symbolic messages. For example, the banana tree, which dies after producing fruit, but is then replaced by a new shoot, suggests the continuity of the family. The lion is a symbol of the king of Dahomey and the chameleon atop the tree signifies transformation. The tethered goat is a sacrificial animal whose blood will "feed" the vodun spirits. The asen thus functions as a ritual object for the veneration of ancestors within the family.
Exhibition HistoryAsen: Iron Altars of the Fon People of Benin (travelling show), Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology, October 2 - December 21, 1985; Museum of Natural History, Anniston, Alabama, January 9 - February 9, 1986; Grinter Galleries, Center for African Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, Febrary 17 - March 14, 1986
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, Rotation 3, September 26, 1998 - September 2000
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, July 19, 2003 - March 13, 2007
MCCM Permanent Collection Installation, November 19, 2007 - December 2010
Divine Intervention: African Art and Religion, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 5 - December 4, 2011
MCCM African Installation, December 5, 2011 - December 1, 2014
Published ReferencesEdna G. Bay, Asen: Iron Altars of the Fon People of Benin (Atlanta: Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology, 1985), 36.
Edna G. Bay, "On Ouidah Asen," African Arts (Spring 2007): 6-7.
MCCM Newsletter, March - May 2008.
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 98.
Suzanne Preson Blier, Asen: memoires de fer forge: art vodun du Danhome ans les collections du musee Barbier-Mueller (Lausanne: Ides et Calendes, 2018), 53.

ProvenanceEx coll. William Arnett (1939-2020), Atlanta, Georgia, from at least 1985.

Status

Not on view

Collections