Encountering Gold: Asante at the Wallace Collection

Untangles the extraordinary history of Asante regalia at the Wallace Collection.

The Wallace Collection is famed for its Old Master paintings, French decorative arts, and arms and armour. Among these works, however, lies a small group of gold regalia that is of profound spiritual, cultural and artistic importance to Asante, today in Ghana. Taken as part of an indemnity imposed on the kingdom by British forces during the Third Anglo-Asante War in 1874, they were later sold by the crown jeweller Garrard & Co. to London society, including Sir Richard Wallace.

This richly illustrated book, written in collaboration with Manhyia Palace Museum, is the first to fully explore the significance of these objects to the Asante people, as well as their history, from Kumasi to a British national museum.