"The Many Lives of the Asante Ewer" with Dr. Lloyd de Beer, Curator, British Museum

A trio of medieval jugs made in Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries lie at the heart of this talk. All three were looted by the British military in the final years of the nineteenth century from Kumasi, in modern-day Ghana, then the capital of the Asante Kingdom. This paper will explore the medieval and Early Modern history of the jugs but will also consider their shifting status and significance over time, as well as the context for their nineteenth-century removal and redisplay in England.

This keynote lecture is being presented as part of the New England Medieval Consortium and in conjunction with the exhibition Medieval Art from the Wyvern Collection: Global Networks and Creative Connections on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art through September 5, 2027.

Image: The Asante Jug, Late Medieval, ca. 1390-1399, copper alloy, Museum purchase, Charles St. Leger Barter, Major General, copyright Trustees of the British Museum, 1896,0727.1.

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Co-hosted with: History, Africana Studies, Art History, English, Religion, Anthropology, Classics, Lectures and Concerts Committee

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