Benin in Boston – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

An asen is an altar commemorating a deceased person in the Fon culture. Family members in the world of the dead maintain an active role in the world of their living relatives and the asen facilitates communion between these two realms. Periodically, food offerings are placed upon the asen, or libations are poured over it, in order to please the deceased.

This asen was made in the coastal city of Ouidah in the Republic of Benin. Ouidah was infamous as a slave port for France, Britain, Holland, and Portugal. By the end of the slave trade in the 19th century Ouidah’s most important inhabitants were Afro-Brazilians, freed slaves returning from the Portuguese plantations of Brazil. The Brazilian influence is seen in the tableau of objects on the platform. The commemorated person sits on an ornate chair instead of an African stool, wearing a European stovepipe hat and clothes (status symbols indicating the wealth and standing of the deceased). The Christian cross indicates a familiarity with Portuguese Catholicism and coexists alongside older Fon symbolic motifs. For example, The tethered goat and roosters represent food offerings made to the deceased.

This asen is made of iron, with iron oxide encrustations. It dates from the mid-19th century.