The Manhyia Palace has taken custody of 130 additional gold, bronze, and wooden art objects returned from South Africa and the United Kingdom, marking one of the most significant restitution milestones in recent years for the Asante Kingdom.
The newly arrived works many created in Kumasi and surrounding Asante communities between the 1870s and early 20th century include royal regalia, governance-related artifacts, ceremonial objects, and goldweights that once illustrated the kingdom’s socio-economic reliance on gold. The pieces range from 45 to 160 years old and have now been formally handed over to Asantehene Otumfuor Osei Tutu II for preservation and public exhibition at the Manshyia Palace Museum.
A major portion of the returned items came through AngloGold Ashanti, whose Chief Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Officer, Stuart Bailey, together with Managing Director of the Obuasi Mine Samuel Boakye Pobee and former MP Edward Ennin, visited the Asantehene earlier to convey the company’s commitment to restitution. Although the company had legally purchased the historic objects on the open market, the Asantehene praised AngloGold Ashanti for acting in good faith by returning them to their rightful origin.
The 110 objects from the Barbier-Muller Museum collection originally assembled by Swiss collector Josef Muller in 1904 raise the total number of restituted items in Kumasi from that collection to 140 pieces.
A separate donation of 25 rare artifacts has come from British art historian and retired Christie’s specialist Hermione Waterfield, whose long career included founding the auction house’s Tribal Art Department in 1971. Her donation features an exceptional 46-inch wooden fontomfrom drum, believed to have been taken from the Manhyia Palace during the 1900 Siege of Kumasi led by British officer Sir Cecil Hamilton Armitage during the Yaa Asantewaa War. Waterfield also relinquished a series of goldweights acquired between 1967 and 1973.
According to Manhyia Palace Museum Director Ivor Agyeman-Duah, Waterfield’s gesture honors the legacy of her late colleague, the renowned British art historian and archaeologist Timothy Garrard, one of the foremost authorities on West African gold and metalwork. The donation includes the iconic brass self-portrait of Garrard on a motorbike, crafted in Kumasi by Yaw Amankwa in 1980.
Agyeman-Duah confirmed that the newly returned pieces will feature prominently in upcoming museum displays, alongside works by celebrated Ghanaian and African artists such as Ablade Glover, El Anatsui, Ato Delaquis, Nee-Owoo, Anthony Kwame Akoto, Vincent Kofi, and Edwin Kwasi Bodjawah.
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