Benin Plaques
- Gallery: Room 25
- Made in: Benin City
- Date: 16thC-17thC
- Object type: plaque
- Materials: brass
- Museum number: Af1898,0115.199
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
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About this object
This is a Benin Plaque, created in Benin City, and made by the Edo people. The plaque is cast in brass using the lost-wax method. Its narrow form features a background decorated with river leaf patterns and small dotted marks.
At the center is a seated leopard, depicted with its upper body viewed from above and the lower body in profile. The leopard has whiskers and stands with upright ears. Its skin is marked with circular patterns bordered by dots. The back legs cross one in front of the other.
These plaques once adorned the palace of the Oba, or king, in Benin. Most date from the 16th to 17th centuries and were made in pairs. They reveal a highly skilled tradition of brass casting, unique to Benin.
Many of these works traveled to the UK after British forces entered the city in 1897. This plaque was donated to a museum by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs following that event.
See it in person
Benin Plaques is on display in Room 25 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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