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Bronze plate with catfish

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About 900 of these rectangular metal plates were cast between 1550 and 1608 and nailed to the wooden pillars that supported the gallery roofs and adorned the courtyards of the Royal Palace. Later they were kept in interior rooms. On this plate is depicted a catfish. The trembling catfish (Malapterurus electricus) is a symbol of the king's power, as it can give out electric shocks. The society of the kingdom, which had no writing, recorded values and also important events in their "bronzes", in order to remember and visualize them. Thus, history, social order, values, etc. could be read from these works of art. Thus, they had mnemonic functions as a "collective memory" in addition to their sacred character. Text: Dietmar Neitzke.

Data Provider
Linden-Museum Stuttgart Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde Show original at data provider

Cataloguing data

Cultural attribution
Edo
Object type
Relief
Dimensions
Length: 35.6 cm
Width: 20.3 cm
Material/Technique
Copper alloy Lost wax process
Current location
Linden-Museum Stuttgart
Inventory number
005377

Provenance and sources

  • Assignment to a curated holding:
    Knorr; 0137
  • Change of physical control or legal title
    where
    Nigeria
Provenance
In October 1898, the Hamburg company "H. Bey & Co" offered the Berlin Ethnological Museum a Benin collection that came directly from Africa. However, due to a lack of funds, the entire collection could not be purchased and was therefore to be passed on to other interested parties. Felix von Luschan of the Berlin Museum therefore informed Karl Graf von Linden in November 1898, and offered him a right of first refusal. The Linden Museum then made 15,000 M available for the purchase of objects. The purchase price was paid by the Heilbronn entrepreneur Karl Knorr, which is why the collection became known as "Die Karl Knorr'sche Sammlung von Benin-Altertümern". Von Luschan published a detailed description of the collection under the same title (1901) on behalf of Count Linden and Knorr. Other buyers of the collection included the museums in Vienna and Munich, but also people such as Hans Meyer (Leipzig) and Eugen Rautenstrauch (Cologne). Text: Markus Himmelsbach.

Information about the record

Legal status metadata
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED

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