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wolfgang-jaenicke

A Bronze plate in the style of Benin

A Bronze plate in the style of Benin

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A Bronze plate in the style of Benin, Nigeria, depicting a high ranking, naked person, At the edge there is a rosette, partly pierced through for hanging.

"The body adornment consists of coral foot cuffs and a coral collar, which identify them as high-ranking members of the royal court. Both are only worn during certain ceremonial occasions. While the layered hairstyle with the braided plaits is more common on Benin relief plates, the body adornment is rather rare. It probably refers to a body tattoo, but body painting is also possible.

As early as 1919, Luschan mentioned the difficulty of distinguishing between painting and tattooing on the very similar Berlin plate.
 At the time, he suspected that it was body painting that was applied for a particular festival. In the Vienna catalog, this very plate is discussed again. Unfortunately, the author completely ignores the topic of body adornment and does not even name it. Instead, he devotes a large section to an anecdote that is supposed to be related to this plate. According to this, the middle boy represents the crown prince Odogbo, the son of King Oba Ehengbuda (ca. 1578 - 1608). Because of his feminine features, there was a rumor that the boy was actually a girl. For this reason, the Oba ordered his son to walk naked from Usulu, where he resided, to Benin with a retinue of his own age as proof of his masculinity. This was to demonstrate that Odogbo was actually a man and could be considered as heir to the throne."

Cf.: Felix von Luschan: Die Altertümer von Benin, Volume 2, Berlin 1919, pp. 219-220. Barbara Plankensteiner (ed.): Benin.
 Kings and Rituals. Courtly Art from Nigeria, Vienna 2007, p. 468.



ncl. A Certificate of Provenance of the National Commission of Museums and Monuments (NCMM), Abuja, Nigeria. We suspect that this document was issued by the NCMM of a previous government or based on its original documents. We have not yet received a response to inquiries to the NCMM in Abuja from the current director, who has been in office since March 2024. In any case, this document is likely to be of considerable importance for provenance research, which has so far dealt almost exclusively with colonial injustice and its documentation.


Source digital Benin, more items of this type of plate:
Digital Benin Reference No.
1900391, 211125, 211802, 8980115165, Af18980115169

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