The Armour Archive

I had to bring this back into the forefront of a Kastenbrust breastplate that Andrej brought up in this post.

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=79006

This one is so strange that it is just awesome. This puts the number of Kastenbrust breastplate still in existence that I know of to 4 and I think 2 backplates. Kind of makes you wonder what else is lurking in boxed museum and private collections.

http://www.frostyfoot.com/docs/Goll_Kastenbrust_2008.pdf

I often wondered how we should interpret many of the artworks from the time, now I'm really thinking that they are fairly accurate in their portrayal. Like this example from 1443:



Any German reading folks want to take a stab and translate this for us? Especially for those of us, like me, who don't read enough German to get ourselves into trouble even.

Summarized, the text from the .pdf sayes, that the peace was held as an 16th century-breastplate because of the decoration, which was also existant in that time. Nowerday´s analysis (in coorporation with the famous german Armourer Peter Müller) found out, that it really is from the 1430´ -jears.

Greetings, Gregor

Thanks Gregor,

They thought it was a 16th century breast?!? What, did they think it was Maximillian? Who do they have running their museums that they could make such a mistake? Or is it a historical thing that maybe someone had categorized it a hundred years ago and no-one else went back to look at it? Very interesting.

Jason Grimes wrote:Thanks Gregor,

They thought it was a 16th century breast?!? What, did they think it was Maximillian? Who do they have running their museums that they could make such a mistake? Or is it a historical thing that maybe someone had categorized it a hundred years ago and no-one else went back to look at it? Very interesting.

It was probably catalouged as such, by an art historian, based on the fluting alone, before Kaiser Wilhelm told his troops to 'go behave as the Huns' in China, during the Boxer Rebellion. Then it sits in a store-room, because it isn't readily displayable, or possible to display as a full hanress on a mannequin, as was the fashion, until the body of 20th century armour scholarship actually began to build as a seperate field and body of work, and a modern scholar or student took a look at it.

That would be my synopsis of a guess as to the history of the cataloging of that piece.

The addy seems to have changed, here is a corrected url:
http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2008/423/pdf/Goll_Kastenbrust_2008.pdf

"It was probably catalouged as such, by an art historian, based on the fluting alone, before Kaiser Wilhelm told his troops to 'go behave as the Huns' in China, during the Boxer Rebellion. Then it sits in a store-room, because it isn't readily displayable, or possible to display as a full hanress on a mannequin, as was the fashion, until the body of 20th century armour scholarship actually began to build as a seperate field and body of work, and a modern scholar or student took a look at it. "


Chef, I think you have that SPOT ON.

Necro Thread Alert

Well. it seemed easier to add these images from the NYPL than to start a new thread on boxy breasts.

Keyser Conrad, c. 1445, Spencer Coll. MS 104, f. 56

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?427839

folio 78v

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1266425