{
"data": {
"id": 115165,
"accession_number": "1935.312",
"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: 8.7 cm (3 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1935.312",
"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: 8.7 cm (3 7/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"length": 0.087
}
},
"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": "NY: The Brooklyn Museum, Masterpieces of African Art, October 18, 1954-January 2, 1955, no 31.",
"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": [
"Exhibition Catalogue African Negro Art (1935), cat. no. 162; Original object card (CMA Curatorial File)
"
],
"date": "?\u20131896",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(Charles Ratton Gallery, Paris, France via Pierre Matisse, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"Exhibition Catalogue African Negro Art (1935), cat. no. 162; Original object card (CMA 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.",
"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 life force (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 a 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/Q80008272"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1935.312-knife-sheath-tip-sik"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"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": "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": "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": "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": "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, 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": "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": "Robbins, Warren M., and Nancy Ingram Nooter. African Art in American Collections, Survey 1989. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and mentioned: pp. 202-203, fig. 513",
"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/1935.312",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1935.312/1935.312_web.jpg",
"width": "510",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "210858",
"filename": "1935.312_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1935.312/1935.312_print.jpg",
"width": "1941",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "3289177",
"filename": "1935.312_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1935.312/1935.312_full.tif",
"width": "2905",
"height": "5088",
"filesize": "44362988",
"filename": "1935.312_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Dudley P. Allen Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 115165,
"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": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-03-27 00:07:00.388000"
}
}