Institutional metadata
Add ID/s
FO.191 (Foreign Office number)~Af,A60.64 (previously numbered as, in error )
Object Name/s
photographic print (black and white (sepia))
Technique/s
photographic process
Description (full)
Photograph (black and white/sepia); image of brass relief plaque (Ama) from Benin City, Nigeria. Single figure with sword held aloft in right proper hand. Rosette in top left proper corner. Crocodile heads in bottom corners. River leaf background design. Photographic process.
Dimension/s
Height: 11.20 cm~Width: 10.80 cm
Subject/s
plaque ~crocodile
Producer/s
Photographed by: The British Museum
Prod. Place/s
Photographed in: British Museum
Assoc. Ethnic Name/s
Associated with: Edo
Assoc. Place/s
Associated with: Royal Palace
Inscription/s
Inscription:~ Inscription details: annotation (reverse of photograph ) in English~ Inscription quoted: £6~ Inscription note: Handwritten in pencil. Sale price for plaque in 1898.
URL
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/EA_Af-B113-64
Curator's Comment/s
During the British expedition to Benin City (Edo) in 1897 objects made of brass, ivory, coral, and wood were looted from the royal palace, its storerooms, and compounds. Some of these objects subsequently passed as official 'spoils of war' to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Among this loot were 304 brass relief plaques that were lent to the British Museum and displayed in the Assyrian Saloon in September 1897. Subsequently, the Museum petitioned successfully for the acquisition of 203 of these plaques that were donated to the Museum by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and were accessioned into the collection in January 1898. A further 11 plaques were added to the original list and of these remaining 112 plaques, 14 were sold to UK museums, 50 were sold to German museums, 39 were sold to a private dealer, Miss Eva Cutter, 8 were retained by the Foreign Office and 1 was unrecorded. The Museum managed these sales on behalf of the Foreign Office. The photographs in this series were produced at this time to send out to prospective vendors. The FO (Foreign Office) numbers assigned at this time were painted onto the plaques and are sometimes mistakenly attributed as 'Read & Dalton' numbers (referring to the 1899 publication: Antiquities from Benin in the British Museum by Charles Read and Ormonde Dalton). See File: AOA/Benin/Foreign Office plaques: external (includes former PicDoc.50). By jhudson 9 Dec 2021~The original plaque depicted in this photograph was purchased in 1898 by dealer Casper Andreas Valdemar Blad for £6 and ?donated to the Museum für Völkerkunde, Dresden. Accession number: 16058. From 1928 in collection of Arthur Speyer II, Berlin. Until 1931 in collection of swiss collector, Han Coray. Seized by Schweizerische Volksbank in 1931. By 1940 in Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich. Purchased in 1940 by the Historisches und Völkerkundemuseum, St. Gallen (Kulturmuseum, St Gallen). Accession number: VK C 3173. By jhudson 11 Apr 2023