Royal asen (commemorative altar) with bird
This sculpture belongs to a class of portable altars the Fon call asen. The word is thought to be related to the Yoruba term Ọ̀sanyìn, the name of the deity of medicine whose iron staffs were early models for such objects. In Fon communities an asen is “planted” in a family or royal shrine house (asen-ho) where it becomes the site at which the living meet the dead, interrogate them, and offer food or libations during yearly commemorations or at moments such as births, weddings, or decisions that require ancestral counsel. Those offerings act to renew inter-generational bonds and leave visible traces of palm oil and other substances on the metal.
By the nineteenth century the kingdom of Dahomey’s leadership had elevated asen to royal insignia. Each monarch and his kpojito (queen-mother) was represented by a distinct staff that was brought outdoors during the annual “custom” rites, set beside the king’s spirit house and refreshed with yams, corn and songs from the dadasi, the ruler’s paternal aunt. Fon etiquette insists that an asen must never be seen by the person it honors, so King Behanzin could commission altars only for predecessors. The bird that crowns this staff is a dynastic emblem shared by Behanzin’s father Glele and grandfather Guezo, making it likely that Behanzin (r. 1890–1894) ordered this work to affirm continuity with those powerful ancestors during the French-Dahomean wars that threatened the throne.
This work was produced in the royal capital, Abomey, by the Hountondji guild, a lineage of court metalsmiths renowned for transforming imported copper and silver into regalia, scepters, and ancestral altars. Copper alloys were rarer and more prestigious than the more common wrought-iron asen, so the gleaming shaft would have proclaimed both the high rank of the patron and the exalted status of the ancestor commemorated. The guild’s technical virtuosity, described in oral histories as evolving under King Guezo when fine copper sheets began to clothe royal works, is evident in the lost-wax cast platform, the crisply modeled bird, and the delicately attached seed-pod pendants that once tinkled in the wind to attract ancestral attention.
Sandro Capo Chichi, Research Associate, Arts of Africa, 2025
By the nineteenth century the kingdom of Dahomey’s leadership had elevated asen to royal insignia. Each monarch and his kpojito (queen-mother) was represented by a distinct staff that was brought outdoors during the annual “custom” rites, set beside the king’s spirit house and refreshed with yams, corn and songs from the dadasi, the ruler’s paternal aunt. Fon etiquette insists that an asen must never be seen by the person it honors, so King Behanzin could commission altars only for predecessors. The bird that crowns this staff is a dynastic emblem shared by Behanzin’s father Glele and grandfather Guezo, making it likely that Behanzin (r. 1890–1894) ordered this work to affirm continuity with those powerful ancestors during the French-Dahomean wars that threatened the throne.
This work was produced in the royal capital, Abomey, by the Hountondji guild, a lineage of court metalsmiths renowned for transforming imported copper and silver into regalia, scepters, and ancestral altars. Copper alloys were rarer and more prestigious than the more common wrought-iron asen, so the gleaming shaft would have proclaimed both the high rank of the patron and the exalted status of the ancestor commemorated. The guild’s technical virtuosity, described in oral histories as evolving under King Guezo when fine copper sheets began to clothe royal works, is evident in the lost-wax cast platform, the crisply modeled bird, and the delicately attached seed-pod pendants that once tinkled in the wind to attract ancestral attention.
Sandro Capo Chichi, Research Associate, Arts of Africa, 2025
Artwork Details
- Title: Royal asen (commemorative altar) with bird
- Artist: Hountondji guild artists
- Date: 19th century
- Geography: Republic of Benin, Court of Abomey
- Culture: Fon peoples
- Medium: Brass (hammered), copper, seed pod(?)
- Dimensions: H. 35 × W. 4 × D. 6 in. (88.9 × 10.2 × 15.2 cm)
- Classification: Metal-Sculpture
- Credit Line: The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979
- Object Number: 1979.206.82
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
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