{
"data": {
"id": 115161,
"accession_number": "1935.308",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Knife-sheath tip (sika boha), 1800s. Africa, West Africa, Ghana, Asante Empire/Kingdom, Kumasi or probably Kumasi, member of the goldsmiths' guild. Gold; overall: 6.9 cm (2 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1935.308",
"current_location": "108C African Jewelry and Metalwork",
"title": "Knife-sheath tip (sika boha)",
"creation_date": "1800s",
"creation_date_earliest": 1800,
"creation_date_latest": 1896,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Africa, West Africa, Ghana, Asante Empire/Kingdom, Kumasi or probably Kumasi, member of the goldsmiths' guild"
],
"technique": "Gold",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "African Art",
"collection": "African Art",
"type": "Arms and Armor",
"measurements": "Overall: 6.9 cm (2 11/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.069,
"height_inch": 2,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.6875
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 312341,
"title": "The Silver Jubilee Exhibition",
"description": "The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).",
"opening_date": "1941-06-23T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 207289,
"title": "Perfect Documents: Walker Evans and African Art",
"description": "Perfect Documents: Walker Evans and African Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (February 1-September 3, 2000).",
"opening_date": "2000-02-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 297093,
"title": "The Power of Gold: Asante Royal Regalia from Ghana",
"description": "The Power of Gold: Asante Royal Regalia from Ghana. The Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX (organizer) (April 15-August 12, 2018).",
"opening_date": "2018-04-15T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "NY, Museum of Modern Art, 1935: \"African Negro Art,\" cat. no. 162, (also to CMA 9/27 - 10/27, 1935).",
"opening_date": "1927-09-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Portland Art Museum, Exhibition of Jewelry, November 21-December 28, 1952.",
"opening_date": "1952-11-21T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "NY: The Brooklyn Museum, Masterpieces of African Art, October 18, 1954-January 2, 1955.",
"opening_date": "1954-10-18T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. \"Perfect Documents: Walker Evans and African Art\" 2/1/00 - 9/3/00, exh. cat. no. 18, p. 68.",
"opening_date": "2000-02-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Treasury of asantehene (King) Agyeman Prempeh I, Kumasi, Ghana",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?\u20131896",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(Charles Ratton Gallery, Paris, France via Pierre Matisse, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"Original object card, 9/14/35 (Curatorial File)
"
],
"date": "?\u20131935",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1935\u2013",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Gold objects like this were frequently melted down to make new objects in new fashions.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Gold sheaths covered the cast iron blade of a king\u2019s ceremonial knife (sikay), wrapping them with symbolism. In Akan states like the Asante Kingdom, gold embodies lifeforce (kra) and is the sun\u2019s earthly counterpart. Only goldsmiths\u2019 guild members could make gold ornaments for the royals and their entourage, or for the royal treasury. Here, the goldsmith used a tool to push the raised floral, leaf, and geometric designs from the back of soft sheet of gold (repouss\u00e9 technique). Small dots outlining some motifs were punched into the metal. Similarly decorated gold sheets and solid ornaments capped a knife\u2019s handle.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80008265"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1935.308-knife-sheath-tip-sik"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Ratton, Charles. \u00ab Les bijoux en forme de disque etc. \u00bb Special Issue, Pr\u00e9sence Africaine : L'Art N\u00e8gre 10-11. Paris : Aux Editions du Seuil (1951).",
"page_number": "Ill. opp. p. 192, no. 101, text p. 152.",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Wixom, William D. \u201cAfrican Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art,\u201d African Arts 10, no. 3 (April 1977): 16-24.",
"page_number": "Repr. p. 21.",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "L'Art Negre, Presence Africaine, 10-11, Aux Editions du Seuil, opp. p. 192, no. 101, text p. 152.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), and James Johnson Sweeney. African Negro Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1935.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 39, no. 162",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Milliken, William. \"Exhibition of Gold.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 34, no. 9 (November 1947): 211-212.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 211-212; Reproduced: p. 235",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25141408"
},
{
"citation": "Brooklyn Museum. Masterpieces of African Art. Exhibition Dates: October 21, 1954-January 2, 1955. [Brooklyn]: Brooklyn Museum, 1954.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 39",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 388",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n72"
},
{
"citation": "Robbins, Warren M., and Nancy Ingram Nooter. African Art in American Collections, Survey 1989. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 202-203, fig. 517",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Webb, Virginia-Lee, and Walker Evans. Perfect Documents: Walker Evans and African Art, 1935. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 22; Reproduced: p. 23, fig. 13, p. 68, no. 18",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Petridis, Constantijn. South of the Sahara: selected works of African art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2003.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. 19, p. 68 - 69",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Petridis, Constantine. \"A World of Great Art for Everyone.\" In Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display. Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Christa Clarke, 104-121. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 112",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Walker, Roslyn A., Martha J. Ehrlich, Christraud M. Geary, M. D. McLeod, and Doran H. Ross. The Power of Gold: Asante Royal Regalia from Ghana. Yale University Press, New Haven and London. Dallas : Dallas Museum of Art, 2018.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 29; Reproduced: p. 95, cat. 42",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1935.308",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1935.308/1935.308_web.jpg",
"width": "636",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "337502",
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"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1935.308/1935.308_print.jpg",
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"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1935.308/1935.308_full.tif",
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},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Dudley P. Allen Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 115161,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1935-10-24T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1800,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1800s",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Ornament"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 06:01:35.628000"
}
}