African Crafts Market

African Benin bronzes

Size: Listed below images of Benin Bronzes below.

The Benin Bronzes are a collection of more than 1,000 brass plaques from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin. They were seized by a British force in the Punitive Expedition of 1897 and given to the British Foreign Office. Around 200 of these were then passed on to the British Museum in London, while the remainders were divided between variety of collections.

With the backing of the monarchy selected artists of Benin developed a special style of sculpture vastly different from the rest of the region. They produced many fine bronze and or brass heads, figurines, brass plaques, and large rectangular metal pictures, which were used to decorate the Oba's palace.

Despite the disappearance of the Benin kingdom, the Yoruba people living on its territory continued to produce artwork inspired by the great royal art of Benin.

Below is a selection of the Bronze sculptures created by hand in Nigeria, each is unique and one of a kind, we only have 1 of each items below in stock.