The melanated court of Benin, cast in bronze by its own guild.
Our piece shows a palace plaque in its own dark bronze: a figure at the center in a ridged cap and collar, a great blade crossing the plaque, attendants at his side and smaller figures above and below. The nail holes are still there from when it hung on the palace pillars. The Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Edo State, Nigeria, kept a royal guild of casters who made thousands of these, mostly in the 1500s and 1600s. In 1897 a British force burned Benin City and carried them off to museums around the world. Some have come home. The rest are still waiting.
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“Benin Bronze Plaque” Archive Boxy Tee
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