1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Plaque

PLAQUE, a French term for a small flat plate or tablet, applied particularly to rectangular or circular ornamental plates or tablets of bronze, silver, lead or other metal, or of porcelain or ivory. Small plaques, plaquettes, in low relief in bronze or lead, were produced in great perfection in Italy at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, and were usually copies of ancient engraved gems, earlier goldsmith work and the like.