This 16th-century plaque hung in one of the rooms of the royal palace in the Edo kingdom of Benin, whose territory extended to the south-west of present-day Nigeria. At the time it was made, the Portuguese, such as those depicted on this plaque, were already trading with the Edo. Although the plaque ended up, five centuries later, in the collections of Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, it had passed through the hands of many collectors and dealers beforehand.

In 1897, a British expeditionary corps seized the kingdom’s capital, Benin City, and pillaged its palace. George Neville, a British shipowner and banker, took countless objects, including a significant number of plaques. After his death in 1929, part of his collection was acquired by Charles Ratton, a Parisian gallery owner and expert in African art. The plaque was exhibited in shows in Paris and New York, and then had a variety of owners before being bought by a French politician. In 2001, the latter’s daughter offered the item for inclusion in the French national collections.