1998.208.15.11

Format: Print

Photographic process: Print gelatin silver

Height x Width 120.00 x 165.00 mm

Interior view of a damaged/ruined 'compound' or roofed courtyard (largely destroyed by fire) – described (in contemporary documentation) simply as being the '[i]nterior of King's compound', without more specific or precise location – inside the king's (Oba's) residence, or palace or (larger) compound area, in Benin City, photographed in the aftermath of the British military attack on the city. At the centre of the image are pictured three British men – recorded as Capt. Charles Carter (left), F. P. Hill (centre) and a third, unidentified man (right) – surrounded by brass relief plaques ('bronzes'), commemorative heads and other figures, which are laid out on the ground in front of them, apparently during the process of their being taken from the walls, collected and removed (elsewhere described in related documentation as 'loot').

Africa -> Western Africa -> Nigeria, Edo State; Benin City

-> Edo; European -> British

Photographer: Reginald Kerr Granville, uncertain; Named Person: Charles Herbert Philip Carter; Named Person: F. P. Hill; Pitt Rivers Museum source: Hugh Nevin Nevins, uncertain

Capt. Charles Herbert Philip Carter (left); F. P. Hill (centre)

Date of photograph: 21/02/1897 - 15/03/1897

Donated: uncertain

Notes on print: '1897/ Benin City./ Interior of King's compound burnt during fire/ Bronzes on ground/ Capt[.] C[.] H[.] P[.] Carter 42nd, F. P. Hill, – [indicating name unknown of third person]' (handwritten in pencil on reverse of print).