Benin Plaques
- Gallery: Room 25
- Made in: Benin City
- Date: 16thC-17thC
- Object type: plaque
- Materials: brass
- Museum number: Af1898,0115.5
- 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 Brass Relief Plaque from Benin City, known as a Benin Plaque. It's a large, rectangular brass plaque with decorative side flanges and a background of river leaf patterns and small dots. Each corner features a raised rosette design.
The plaque depicts a European figure, likely Portuguese, standing in a stylized pose. The figure is shown wearing a helmet with a central boss and a sleeveless doublet, with a patterned tunic and pleated skirt below. In one hand, the figure holds a long weapon with a three-leaf head, and a sword rests on the hip.
Made using the lost-wax method, these plaques once decorated the royal palace of the Oba, the king of Benin. They reflect a period of significant cultural and political history, dating to the 16th to 17th centuries. Many of these plaques were taken to the UK after the British Expedition to Benin in 1897 and are now displayed in museums around the world.
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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