plaque (art)

The ownership of this object was transferred to Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) in November 2022.

A bronze plaque depicting a warrior, carrying a raised Eban (sword). He is depicted wearing a leopard tooth necklace, a coral neck piece and wrist and ankle cuffs. The plaque is damaged on the top right hand corner and the bottom left hand corner. This plaque was purchased from the Crown Agents for the Colonies on 11 March 1898, selling items looted in 1897 on behalf of the Foreign Office.

Such plaques were made to decorate architectural elements of the Oba’s palace at Benin. They are thought to have commemorated events in the history of the Edo Kingdom. This fragment of a brass plaque appears to show an Oba with characteristic beaded headdress carrying one of the emblems of his office, the eben sword.

object
MUSEUM NUMBER
4393
Date
before 1897
PLACE
COLLECTION
MEASUREMENTS
overall: 410 mm x 180 mm x 70 mm; overall: 430 x 190 x 70 mm
MATERIAL/TECHNIQUE
copper alloy; bronze
CATEGORY
Anthropology: Ethnography
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Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

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