Philip Dark, who lists just over one hundred plaques cast with two standing figures in his exhaustive work on the subject (1982), was not aware of the existence of this fine plaque, and nor were the previous owners aware of its importance. The rector and his wife, who consigned it to a small saleroom to the east of London (where it was described as Ashanti), had stored the plaque for a number of years in the back of a garage, the rector's father-in-law having inherited it shortly after the War from an aunt, Miss Mabel Fraser, of Weybridge, Surrey, who in turn was thought to have received it from a Playfair cousin who had been a Consul in China.

When we examine the Playfairs in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office lists the most likely candidate for ownership of the present plaque is George Macdonald Home Playfair, who entered the Foreign Service in 1872, served in Peking (1873-78), Taiwan (1877), Shanghai (intermittently from 1885-1892) and other cities in China until 1904. The two other Playfairs listed at the end of the last century are Frank William Walter Playfair, who served in various posts in Japan from 1880 to 1904, and Sir Robert Lambert Playfair, KCMG, who served in Aden (1846-61), Zanzibar (1862-63) and Algeria (1867-89). A fourth Playfair in the army lists is Captain N.E. Playfair, of the Kings own Scottish Borderers (25th Foot), who served in India (1895-87) and then in East and Central Africa, where he was awarded the East and Central Africa medal in 1897, and Uganda medal in 1899

The plaque depicts two warrior chiefs in full battle dress. Their dance swords, eben, indicate that they are at court - Freyer (1987) records that as a gesture of respect to the oba in court ceremonies, the eben is held aloft, spun rapidly and touched to the ground. Bill Fagg photographed a chief in 1958, in a tall fuzzy hat and court regalia, holding an eben aloft (Freyer, op cit., p.41). Freyer illustrates a plaque with a figure similarly dressed to that on the left in the present plaque, but without the leopard face tunic (p.47, fig.14), and another, in similar regalia but holding the eben in the left hand with the tip towards the ground (p.49, fig.16). Read & Dalton (1899, Pl.XXVII) and von Luschan (1919, p.236, fig.367) illustrate a plaque in the British Museum which has a similarly-dressed figure to the left of a two-figure plaque, who holds an eben in his right hand, almost horizontal. There are various figures in headgear similar to that worn by the figure to the right of the present plaque, but none with exactly the same accoutrements, which are especially well cast in the present example.

The quadrangular bells were apparently worn by warriors into battle as charms, and rung triumphantly on their victorious return: the leopard teeth necklaces and embroiderd faces are further references to power. Ebe ame (river leaves) are references to Olokun, god of the sea, with his associations to overseas trade and resulting increase of wealth in Benin after the arrival of the Portuguese.

The dating of the plaques is not exact, but it is generally accepted that they were cast sometime after the middle of the 16th century, and before they were seen by Dapper's informant in the middle of the following century, nailed to the pillars of the palace of the oba in Benin. By the time of the Expedition of 1897 they were stacked in a room and consulted from time to time to clarify points of dress and etiquette, as confirmed to William Fagg and R.E. Bradbury by Chief Osuma in 1959, who remembered being sent on such errands as a page at the court of Oba Ovonramwen