Benin Plaques
- Gallery: Room 25
- Made in: Benin City
- Date: 16thC-17thC
- Object type: plaque
- Materials: brass
- Museum number: Af1898,0115.188
- 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
Before you is a brass relief plaque known as a "Benin Plaque." Created in Benin City around the 16th to 17th century, this artwork uses a special casting method known as the lost-wax technique. The Edo people of Nigeria crafted it, and it features four stylized mudfish arranged in high relief.
Look closely at the intricate design: the mudfish have curved barbels, large circular eyes, and detailed tail fin shapes. Their bodies are covered with overlapping scales, and decorative crosshatching adorns their heads.
These plaques once decorated the palace of the Oba, or king. Despite being called "Benin Bronzes," most are made from a type of brass with added lead. They were often used to line pillars in grand palace courtyards. Scholars believe each plaque was made in pairs and that some show scenes of court life or historical events.
The plaque arrived in the UK following the British occupation of Benin City in 1987, when many such works were taken from the royal palace.
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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