青銅の彫像 - 銘板 - ベナン - Nigeria

A rare Benin bronze plaque (ama), Nigeria, depicting two musicians accompanied by a third figure who appears to adjust or regulate the sound of one of the drums. The scene belongs to a comparatively uncommon category within the corpus of Benin court plaques. While the majority of surviving plaques portray court officials, warriors, attendants, ritual specialists, and foreign traders, representations of musical performance occur far less frequently. Among these, drums are particularly rare when compared to horns, bells, and rattles. As Roger Blench has noted, the musical imagery of the Benin plaques is dominated by aerophones and idiophones, whereas drums appear only occasionally. Without any laboratory tests, the attribution is provided for reference only, based on our knowledge in the field.

The closest known parallel is a plaque in the collection of the British Museum depicting two drummers accompanied by a third figure who supports or manipulates the central drum. This composition closely resembles the present example and suggests that such scenes recorded specific aspects of court ceremonial music rather than generic entertainment. Other depictions of musicians are known from collections in London, Berlin, Vienna, and New York, yet scenes focused on drummers remain distinctly uncommon.

Music occupied an important place within the royal court of Benin. Court musicians performed during state ceremonies, ancestral commemorations, royal processions, and annual festivals. Certain instruments were associated with particular guilds and ceremonial functions, and their performance formed part of the visual and auditory expression of royal authority. The presence of a third figure actively interacting with the drum may indicate the tuning, stabilization, or ritual preparation of the instrument during performance, emphasizing the specialized nature of the event represented.

From an art-historical perspective, the plaque may be assigned to the broader tradition of Benin court casting that flourished between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. If the modeling, relief structure, casting quality, and surface characteristics correspond to those of the classical court plaques, an origin during the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century would appear plausible. The mature patina, described as consisting of multiple naturally developed layers, is consistent with considerable age, although a precise dating would require examination of the reverse, casting details, corrosion morphology, and metallurgical composition.

On stylistic grounds alone, and subject to direct examination, a tentative dating between circa 1550 and 1700 appears reasonable, with a preference for the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. Such an assessment would place the plaque within the period generally regarded as the zenith of Benin court art, when the royal foundries produced the celebrated narrative plaques that documented the ceremonial, political, and ritual life of the kingdom.

The significance of this plaque lies not only in its rarity but also in its documentation of courtly musical practice. By depicting interaction between musicians and an assistant responsible for the instrument itself, the relief provides a valuable visual record of a specialized aspect of Benin ceremonial culture that is seldom represented in surviving works.

Selected References

Blench, Roger. Reconstructing African Music History from the Benin Plaques. Cambridge
Dark, Philip J. C. An Introduction to Benin Art and Technology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Ezra, Kate. Royal Art of Benin: The Perls Collection. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Plankensteiner, Barbara (ed.). Benin – Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria. Museum für Völkerkunde, Vienna.
Blackmun, Barbara Winston. The Benin Royal Arts of Africa. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
Nevadomsky, Joseph. The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-speaking Peoples of Southwestern Nigeria. West African Studies.

This information is created by AI and based on published ethnographic, archaeological, and art-historical sources.

“The Benin plaques depict scenes of court life, including musical performance … horns, bells and stamped rattles seem to predominate, and drums are rare.” Roger Blech, Reconstrucing African musicv history.

One clear example: the plaque at the British Museum, registration Af1898,0115.128, shows two standing drummers with a kneeling attendant who supports one of the drums. The attendant is shown holding the drum (tensioned by pegs) which suggests an immediately analogous scene to what you describe: a third person adjusting or supporting the instrument (in this case the membrane/tension pegs) rather than playing it, see British Museum.


Another example: Af1961,18.1 (also British Museum) shows a seated drummer playing two slit‑drums, though there is no explicit third figure adjusting a drum (penultimate photo sequence).

Thus: yes, there are highly comparable motifs of multiple percussionists and attendants supporting the drums in the Benin plaque corpus, though perhaps your exact combination (two musicians + one who adjusts) seems rare but not unique.

One point worth noting: the attendant adjusting/holding the drum in Af1898,0115.128 (last photo sequence) is explicitly mentioned in the catalogue description: “‘…the two single‑skin drums … whose membranous head is tensioned by adjustable pegs, for which an attendant is always needed.’” British Museum.