In 1897, following a series of frustrated attempts to end a monopoly on palm oil and various other commodities held by the Oba (king) of Benin, the British led a punitive raid on Benin City. Justification for this brutal event was sought, in the British press, by depicting the Oba and his people as ‘savages’ who practised human sacrifice. However, the elaborately carved ivories and cast brass plaques and sculpture seized from the royal court, and dispersed to British museum collections, were evidence of a sophisticated and technologically-advanced society.

This unsavoury aspect of British history was reflected on by artist Tony Phillips in a 1984 series of etchings, History of the Benin Bronzes. In the series, Phillips adopts the unusual technique of reusing a printing plate to create a second image, with elements of the first image still visible. Thus, in this image, the seventh in the suite of twelve plates, we revisit the Oba’s palace of scene four only to find it licked by flames and occupied by British soldiers who stand with piles of booty before them. This layering technique mirrors the way in which history builds up in the layers, thus, for the Benin bronzes, reflects their inescapability from their original context and the means by which they were removed from it.