Asen are metal art objects created to honour the spirits of ancestors and deities and function as meeting points for the visible and spiritual worlds to interact in. Richly decorated with a variety of human, animal and plant motifs that illustrate proverbs, ancestral Asen reflect the relationship between the living and the dead through visual and verbal references to the deceased.

Metal votive offerings such as the one depicted here have been traced back to an era where they functioned solely in the context of Vodun (the Fon word for spirit). Later made for kings and the aristocracy they became increasingly common. Craftsmen making curio objects for the tourist trade during the 20th Century also made altarpieces for anyone who could afford it; figures were also made with sheet metal rather than in the traditional lost-wax technique.

This indicates colonialist influences in the materials used as well as in some of the imagery, which often makes reference to Christian motifs. This Asen does however reflect the skill of the craftsmen who forged the figures, disks and leaf shapes out of iron, which are all attached to the disk via small iron rings.

Extended families among the Fon people of Benin would own numerous Asen, or family altars, crafted from iron. They would be kept in a small building in the courtyard of the family house and tended by the eldest woman in the family. There would be an Asen for each ancestor, which served as line of communication between the living and the dead and to which offerings would be made and recognition rituals performed. After complex funerary ceremonies an Asen would be consecrated to the ancestor and regularly sacrificed to.

This particular type of Asen is called “AsenGbadota” or “Asen with a Hat” because of the flat dish surmounting the five vertical supports resembling umbrella struts, and which itself is attached to the end of a staff. The cut-out sheet iron figures on top represent the deceased and reflects their achievements and status within the family and community, often drawing on a pun or a proverb to make an observation of the individual during life.