The Armour Archive

Klaus the Red wrote:You know what? Based on that close-up picture, I'm going to go out on a limb here and put my money on the Paris arm being either a bad composite restoration job or an outright fake.

I though something similar. Hence the editing of my post. I don't think you can use the hardened as an argument, though.
Hardening was spotty.

I would have expected the smaller spade-type fan, as well.

I don't think you can use the hardened as an argument, though.
Hardening was spotty.

Fair enough- call it a strong hunch, then, based on how badly all the rivets have been dealt with. Some of them are practically falling through the holes. At best, it might be some cleaned-up pieces of an original arm harness, or more than one, reassembled by an amateur with the clumsy flange added.

Now the helmet falls under suspicion for me as well- it looks too new and shiny, though there are extant bascinets with that nice a finish on them (one in the Cluny, for instance). And if that's a complete and intact 1350 habergeon, why hadn't we heard of it before? Close up, those links look an awful lot like typical unflattened Indian mail with round rivets.

Much as I want to believe, my gut tells me these might all be repro pieces bought by the museum to dress up the possibly-original corazina lung plates with some context, and they just aren't bothering to admit to it on the placard.

Klaus
IBAS (Int'l Brotherhood of Armor Skeptics), local 1400

Klaus the Red wrote:

Now the helmet falls under suspicion for me as well- it looks too new and shiny, though there are extant bascinets with that nice a finish on them (one in the Cluny, for instance). And if that's a complete and intact 1350 habergeon, why hadn't we heard of it before? Close up, those links look an awful lot like typical unflattened Indian mail with round rivets.

Much as I want to believe, my gut tells me these might all be repro pieces bought by the museum to dress up the possibly-original corazina lung plates with some context, and they just aren't bothering to admit to it on the placard.

Klaus
IBAS (Int'l Brotherhood of Armor Skeptics), local 1400

If I may ask a question, What are the brass(?) rivets doing at the top and bottom of the visor? Is there any evidence of rivets like this on other pieces?

the brass(?) rivets doing at the top and bottom of the visor? Is there any evidence of rivets like this on other pieces?

I don't believe so, but in the case where the visor formerly had applied decorative borders that have been removed, small rivet holes would remain. See a couple of the Churburg helmets for intact borders, and the bascinet at Chartres for the results after the gold/latten is stripped off. Filling the holes in for no practical reason with what look like copper rivets and washers is another sign of a modern piece, I fear.

K

The Oakeshott elbow fan is made in the same style as this first leg, whereas the fan on the Paris arm looks as though it could have been copied (if one assumes it's modern, which I do) from this second leg. Frederick, is the one you were thinking of from Edge and Paddock?

Klaus the Red wrote:The Oakeshott elbow fan is made in the same style as this first leg, whereas the fan on the Paris arm appears to be copied (if one assumes it's modern, which I do) from this second leg.

Hehe... those are the two pics I zoned in on last night.

I will take a closer look at the hat this evening.

That's the upside of there being relatively little surviving 14th century harness... after studying all the individual pieces for a while, you start to know them like old friends, or at least familiar acquaintances whose faces you'd recognize anywhere.

Klaus the Red wrote: Frederick, is the one you were thinking of from Edge and Paddock?

Yep, the one imaged in your Churburgleg2 photo. The similarities of the fan are obvious, I zoned in on that immediately; it's a very distinctive v-crease.

I'm not quite ready to say it's a modern reproduction, in whole or part, but I could easily beleive that it's a badly done reconstruction from parts.


Frederich

Let's put all of the meat on the grill, shall we? Here are all the pics of this particular display....

FRONT TORAX AND HELM


ARMS





BASCINET




LEGS




The museum card I posted earlier had its Inventory code at the bottom, perhaps this could be used somehow to get more information on the piece....any advice?

For the full monty of Armour related pics (notice the name of the file to find where's it from) enjoy!
http://s82.photobucket.com/albums/j264/ ... %20larmee/

Thanks for the interesting input!

My quick takes: The leg looks genuine, as do the brig plates. The helmet now appears more authentic to me from the new angles and with more detail, though I still think the added copper/brass rivets are in error. I'll admit the possibility of being wrong about the mail. My opinion is currently unchanged on the arm.

By the way- please argue with me. I would like nothing better than to be proven wrong and to be able to add these articles to my base of knowledge as the real thing.

Klaus

hmmm BTW, Frederich do you have any more pics from where you got this one? Its the same suit, perhaps you got more details I missed.

Thanks for all the other great photos, too. I see you hit the Cluny as well, but how come you didn't get any shots of my favorite weird little cutwork visor hiding behind that nice shiny bascinet?

Klaus

LOL! probably because I had an anxious brand-new wife waiting to move on to the rest of the museum! It was our honeymoon, and even if we planned for taking time to see the "medieval" exhibits, she was amazed at how long i could stare at the same "chunks of metal" hahaha

....also it probably didnt help to ask her if I could delete some of our photos together to cram more armour photos in my full memory card! (j/k)

I find very interesting the pivoting plate that protect the inside of the elbow, i suppose it substitute the roll in the plate of the vambrace.. right?
It's interesting too that there are 2holes here, maybe the armourer made a little mistake?
Another question : (today is the question's day) there are other arm harnesses that show this feature? And can we define it's timeframe and geographical location?

Signo wrote:I find very interesting the pivoting plate that protect the inside of the elbow, i suppose it substitute the roll in the plate of the vambrace.. right?
It's interesting too that there are 2holes here, maybe the armourer made a little mistake?
Another question : (today is the question's day) there are other arm harnesses that show this feature? And can we define it's timeframe and geographical location?

Marco,

I do not think that plate belongs. I think it is an error and should not be there at all.

Uhm i'm not so convinced, maybe with more picture at hand.......
It look like it could work, shape and position are quite right in respect elbow's motion and arm volume...

Signo wrote:Uhm i'm not so convinced, maybe with more picture at hand.......
It look like it could work, shape and position are quite right in respect elbow's motion and arm volume...

There should be a plate there. However, that is not the plate that should be on the piece. It looks to be a sad attempt at making the arm whole again... sort of a Frankenstein.

See the interior holes on the vambrace... that would have held an articulating plate. New holes were punched/drilled and the existing plate was applied, incorrectly it appears. That plate appears to be the uppermost lame for a pauldron or some such similarly shaped piece.

There is no need for the two holes in the flexible plate... in that location. No need to tie anything down. That vambrace is not going anywhere.

LOL! probably because I had an anxious brand-new wife waiting to move on to the rest of the museum! It was our honeymoon, and even if we planned for taking time to see the "medieval" exhibits, she was amazed at how long i could stare at the same "chunks of metal" hahaha

The moral of the story is: marry a woman who likes the Middle Ages as much as you and will indulge your obsessions! I did, and our honeymoon in Paris was quite harmonious. (Aside from her getting the flu. And perhaps if she hadn't insisted we spend so much time traipsing around the modern art museums as well, we wouldn't have completely neglected to go to the Musee del'Armee. ) Anticipating the problem of storage, I had also bought a spare memory card in London... Still, you managed to take an impressive array of photos for all that- bravo.

Klaus

Roger That Brian, now i understand what you mean.

Klaus the Red wrote:

I don't think you can use the hardened as an argument, though.
Hardening was spotty.

Fair enough- call it a strong hunch, then, based on how badly all the rivets have been dealt with. Some of them are practically falling through the holes. At best, it might be some cleaned-up pieces of an original arm harness, or more than one, reassembled by an amateur with the clumsy flange added.

Now the helmet falls under suspicion for me as well- it looks too new and shiny, though there are extant bascinets with that nice a finish on them (one in the Cluny, for instance). And if that's a complete and intact 1350 habergeon, why hadn't we heard of it before? Close up, those links look an awful lot like typical unflattened Indian mail with round rivets.

Much as I want to believe, my gut tells me these might all be repro pieces bought by the museum to dress up the possibly-original corazina lung plates with some context, and they just aren't bothering to admit to it on the placard.

Klaus
IBAS (Int'l Brotherhood of Armor Skeptics), local 1400

I have a friend who is an armorur caretaker and restorer in a famous italian museum, he told me that most of the armor he has in its care is restored to some extent: when people where buyng such stuff in the late eighteen - early nineteen century they would have them resored by their local smiths and artisans.

He mentioned an arm cannon that was clearly cut and shaped out of a roof eaves, since it carried a distinctive maker mark from the twenties ... of the twentieth century.

I went to the museum where he works and I noticed that all the armors from the sixteenth century that are there carry the same kind of brass rivets..... in the diocesan museum of Mantova the famous Gonzaga armor are all furnished with the very same gray leather straps ... while some rivets are no more than old modern nails that do not match the rest... err

brunoG wrote:I went to the museum where he works and I noticed that all the armors from the sixteenth century that are there carry the same kind of brass rivets..... in the diocesan museum of Mantova the famous Gonzaga armor are all furnished with the very same gray leather straps ... while some rivets are no more than old modern nails that do not match the rest... err

Go to the Chicago Art Institute......

Rerebraces are suspended by pauldrons via white sheetmetal screws... run through the pieces.

The atrocities in the US are numerous and way to frequent. I give you two words... Bashford Dean.

Could the ARS possibly institute an annual feast where we don't burn Dean in effigy, necessarily, but maybe dress his doppelganger in a badly made suit of costume armor and mock him mercilessly for his crimes against research? Or how about an armored Dean piñata full of candy and we give the children pollhammers?

K

Klaus the Red wrote:Could the ARS possibly institute an annual feast where we don't burn Dean in effigy, necessarily, but maybe dress his doppelganger in a badly made suit of costume armor and mock him mercilessly for his crimes against research? Or how about an armored Dean piñata full of candy and we give the children pollhammers?

K

As an ichthyologist, Dean was not a bad armour enthusiast. I honestly think that his intentions were not bad, just misplaced. Everyone was doing the same thing at that point in time. It was commonplace to bastardize the real thing in order to have a nice full display in the foyer of your turn-of-the-century mansion or public collection.

For all of his bad points... he was a driving force towards putting arms and armour in front of people here in the US. He does deserve some credit.

If the Met would take down the Met suit and the picture of Higgins would be removed from central display.. we would be a long way towards forgetting.

Klaus, take a close look at the pic of the interior of the elbow joint, especially in the area between the strap and the cannon. You can clearly see the rivet heads and the smoothly flattened areas where the rivet goes through. You can also see a couple of the rings edge on and see that they have that smoothly ovoid cross-section so common on the surviving flattened mail. It may be a repro, but I'd say it's a good one.

Yeah, that's the inkling I started to get when that second close-up was posted- the individual links seemed a little "softer" to me, as with age. If this is indeed a shirt circa 1350, it's in quite nice shape.

I wonder if I have time to bop over to Paris after the '07 ARS conference in London...?

K

montecristo wrote:Im guessing this harness was pieced together by the museum's staff from the museums collection and not actually found all the pieces together (no information is given on this point). But the eye-catchers are the plates covering the chest over the maille; as they seem to me very similar to the Met's own chest plates and similar "corrazinas".
The third photo is the display's card in french. Which reads:
"Torso Plates, Work from Southern Italy. around 1360-1380"

To give you a general idea, there werent any fauld plates or back plates to be seen, just the 2 on the front. The rivet holes suggest a foundation material like cloth or leather opposed to a composite breastplate (which by the way hasnt back- or fauld-plates as well). Was this piece formed just by the 2 plates shown? or did the other pieces: fauldplates, sideplates, etc. lost over time?

Was this piece loaned recently to the Paris Museum?
Where breastplates formed only of "torso-plates" more common than the full corrrazinas?
or did Corrazina-like armours did appear in France from Commerce, war, ransom or gifts?

What you think?

I think I can shed some light here on these plates. Let first preface by saying that I am certain about what I am saying but I cannot back it up with sources because all that information is in the basement and I am recovering from knee surgery. I'm in an imobilizer from hip to ankle for a few more weeks.

The reason those plate look like corrazina plates is beacause they are corrazina plates. The reason the look like the Chalcis examples is becase they came from Chalcis. This whole group of pieces displayed in these photos, with the exception of the bascinet, (h21) came from a wealthy French private collector in the early 20th century. He bought the corrazina pieces, including a backplate that is not pictured here from Dean though they may have gone through Bachereau's sale room. (This is the stuff that is fuzzy in my head and cannot be confirmed until I am allowed to get up and move down to the basement.)

As to the other two pieces (arm and leg) they were from the same private collection but I do not know if they came from Chalcis or Dean. As to dates, the leg looks to be the earliest possibly dating from the 1380s. The arm probably dates from circa 1410-1420. It seems to have been substantially altered (which reminds one of all that Dean alteration on the frankenstein suit.) The corrazina plates date from the late 14th or early 15th century (certanly not the 1360-1380 date suggested by the museum.)

Klaus the Red wrote: And perhaps if she hadn't insisted we spend so much time traipsing around the modern art museums as well, we wouldn't have completely neglected to go to the Musée de l'Armee. )

Ouch, Klaus, I feel for you, but there is a silver (as in, rather expensive unless you've got plenty sky miles accumulating on your plastic) lining -- later!

While the Middle Ages is only one part of the Musée de l'Armee at the Hôtel des Invalides (any Paris taxi driver can get you there just for the asking, and I've walked the distance between the American USO building in the 8th Arrondissement over the Alexander III bridge to the Hôtel myself), that portion of the museum is a prize collection of remarkably famous stuff. There's a leather covered brigandine there, the so-called Sword of Charlemagne, indeed an excellent cross section of armes blanches from excavated-condition either Migration- or Viking-era blades on up -- you can get a good feel for the contrast between thirteenth and sixteenth century sword style that could bring a pretty raw beginning student to a middling level of expertise in about one day's examination of the sword collection alone. The armor would take longer, though. At minimum for collecting data from this collection, you need a whole day spent there. Two days would seem luxury unparalleled. They have at least one example of that rather rare style of armor, the smooth Maximilian -- practically no flutes, but all the Maximilian profiles -- armet wide through the visor hinges, globose chest, Maxi taces and tassets, all the bits.

Then there's the rest of the Musée, which leans heavily toward the Napoleonic, and includes one of the biggest collections of circa-1800 artillery tubes I've ever seen. That's not hard, as it's about the only -- still, it fills a plaza on the Invalides grounds.

That silver lining is that now you've got something to go back to Paris for -- heck, so do I. I managed a couple of day-trips to Paris on liberty when I was in the Navy and got to the Invalides each time. Still haven't been up in the Eiffel Tower, either. It's bigger than you'd think...

P.S.: A Bashford Dean piñata! -- and some of the treats can be little baggies of periodized domehead rivets, flattened down somewhat to that thick panhead shape! And similar baggies of brigandine nails! -- and some cans of Mountain Dew...

Brian W. Rainey wrote:If the Met would take down the Met suit and the picture of Higgins would be removed from central display.. we would be a long way towards forgetting.

What about persuading the Met to re-restore that harness to reflect the better understanding we now have? It's not like they'd be messing with a pristine sample, even if they included extensive restored plates like horizontal lames for the taces instead of the vertical trapezoidals there now. They'd still have the lovely famous suit -- just a better lovely famous suit. They'd be able to make more accurate use of the early-fifteenth great bascinet skull topping that latter-fourteenth harness, for one bright spot. (You need a profile shot of the Met harness to see that, but that is surely what it is: a great-bascinet skull with a hounskull visor stuck on, the whole parked on top of a mail coif.) What might be done with the famously odd deltoid plates, I'm not sure. It's been extensively pointed out that there isn't a lot of support for plates of that shape on that part of the shoulder in period art or anywhere else, though by the same token, where would curved plates with that turned-up medial flange actually go? Or do these pieces originate in the nineteenth century rather than the turn of the fifteenth?

Konstantin the Red wrote:(You need a profile shot of the Met harness to see that, but that is surely what it is: a great-bascinet skull with a hounskull visor stuck on, the whole parked on top of a mail coif.)

The piece appears to have been heavily restored/reshaped. Probably in the early part of the 1900s.

It may very well be a portion of a more standard earlier bascinet with a skirt of different origin (Chalcis?) added in the early part of this century. The high point does lend itself to the early great bascinets.... but the standard bascinets were shaped similar, as well.

Makes one wonder how many giblets actually came out of Chalcis and got worked into something else.

Regarding the rest of your post, Nick... I suggest writing a nice kind letter, address it to the Metropolitan Museums of Art - Attn: Arms and Armor Curatorial Staff.

Unless Konstantin's legal name is also Nick, that wasn't me bitchin' about the Met. Different other "Red."

Klaus

Talbot:
Thanks for adding to this topic. Its been fantastic the amount of information that has been poured down so far. Take your time to heal the knee, but when you do....do please post those sources!

probably off topic....
Klaus, et al: I do hope you guys manage to visit Paris soon. The place's just chockful of history. Even the design of the city quarters or 'arrondisements' and the star-shaped array of boulevards have their own story! I was lucky enough my wife had just taken a course on the "History of the City of Paris".

Despite the grandness of the Louvre (Charlemagne's sword in there) and the numerous display at the Musee de l'Armee, no visit is complete without a hop to the "Cluny Museum" the amount of material culture in that place is simply astounding. From period shoes to period handtowel rods.
hmmm....Chartres is less than 80 miles from Paris and it has its "Museum of Beaux Arts" with the Charles V (ill-named)pourpoint on display.
Seeing it in person from all sides immediately lets you notice 2 things...
1) It was not military clothing: the rich cloth, the scanty padding (if at all), and the style, point to something more for show than military use.
2) The piece is amazingly tiny! Its was made for Charles when he was 15! but either he was really skinny or the piece was made for him at an earlier age. The whole jupon is just about 2' tall!

ok, done rambling.
Thank you & good night.

Klaus the Red wrote:Unless Konstantin's legal name is also Nick, that wasn't me bitchin' about the Met. Different other "Red."

Klaus

OK, Y'all are confusing me! Get new names. And with you in CA... I am even more lost.

Yes, and we're both "K" names. Well, I like my persona too much to change it, so yer just gonna have to deal.

Klaus, et al: I do hope you guys manage to visit Paris soon.

Oh, I've done it- that was half my honeymoon. We saw the Cluny, the Louvre (briefly) and Chartres, though the coat was inaccessible and the armor was all on tour at the Louvre at that time. I just was clueless as to the amount of good stuff at Les Invalides or I would have insisted my blushing bride dump at least one modern art museum off the schedule in favor of it.

Seriously, though- for anyone attending the ARS London conference in March, who would be interested in doing a quick 2-3 day extension into Paris? Air travel being the money and time suck that it is, it seems a shame not to get the most bang for your buck.

K

Brian W. Rainey wrote:It looks very eerily similar to the one in the Oakeshott collection (except that the Oakeshott piece had a more typical fan style).... did anyone get photos of that? (Please don't post them) just wanting somone to compare.

Eerily similar? have you looked at the Oakeshott arm? It has all the featues of a classic 14th century arm.

Oakeshott, internal hinges-Paris, applied hinges
Oakeshott, flanged lower edge-Paris, rolled lower edge
Oakeshott, Straps nd buckles passing through slots-Paris, applied straps and buckles.
Oakeshott, cusped small wing-Paris, puckered large wing

Yes these pieces are similar. They should be similar. They are both arms from about the same time and possibly place. They are not eerily similar--unless you consider a 1986 chevy cavalier and an 1996 chevy cavalier eerily similar.

The reason I am picking on you here is that "eerily" suggests something mysterious or untoward. Although I am always suspicious of anything in the Paris collection I am not overy suspicious of this arm. It has probably been altered and reworked a bit but it is probably just what it looks like-- an early 15th century arm.

Talbot wrote:

Brian W. Rainey wrote:It looks very eerily similar to the one in the Oakeshott collection (except that the Oakeshott piece had a more typical fan style).... did anyone get photos of that? (Please don't post them) just wanting somone to compare.

Eerily similar? have you looked at the Oakeshott arm? It has all the featues of a classic 14th century arm.

Oakeshott, internal hinges-Paris, applied hinges
Oakeshott, flanged lower edge-Paris, rolled lower edge
Oakeshott, Straps nd buckles passing through slots-Paris, applied straps and buckles.
Oakeshott, cusped small wing-Paris, puckered large wing

Yes these pieces are similar. They should be similar. They are both arms from about the same time and possibly place. They are not eerily similar--unless you consider a 1986 chevy cavalier and an 1996 chevy cavalier eerily similar.

The reason I am picking on you here is that "eerily" suggests something mysterious or untoward. Although I am always suspicious of anything in the Paris collection I am not overy suspicious of this arm. It has probably been altered and reworked a bit but it is probably just what it looks like-- an early 15th century arm.

I said eerily... because I could not remember the details of the Oakeshott piece, having seen it once and not having any pictures. My head contained a foggy rememberance of the piece. I could not remember details. Hence my request for pictures. Perhaps vaguely was a more correct word than eerily.