Front and Side Views of Armour (Michael Pacher)

[Sean M]

Over on corporate social media there is a talk about the silhouette of German Gothic armour 1470-1515. Back in 2019 I was able to take this side view of a sculpture by the Tirolean Bildhauer Michael Pacher at the Landesmuseum Ferdinandaeum in Innsbruck.





As always, click to embiggen

[Mac]

That's a very deep breastplate! One would not predict it from the front view.

Mac

[Chris Flagstad]

The tassets look really long. Are they out of the ordinary? They look cool with the long forget.

It looks like there's no backside to the fauld.

[Mac]

The tassets look really long. Are they out of the ordinary? They look cool with the long forget.

The tassets are unusually long, but the sculptor's other details seem believable. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt about the tasset length.

It looks like there's no backside to the fauld.

That does seems strange. Again, though, the sculptor seems pretty conscientious; so I think we have to (at least tentatively) take him at his word about the lack of cullet.

Mac

[Sean M]

I wonder if its one of the armours whose cuirass only protects the front. Jess Finley found some paintings where the back is protected by a thick quilted jack.

It also does not have mail at the bottom of the cuirass or inside the arms.

[Chris Flagstad]

I wonder if its one of the armours whose cuirass only protects the front. Jess Finley found some paintings where the back is protected by a thick quilted jack.

The back of the pauldrons look pretty big, maybe that compensates for no backplate?

[Sean M]

Its kind of unusual that these are minimal shoulders in front, but big and splayed in back. I think they would provide good protection against anything aimed at the area of the shoulder blades.

The martial saint in the Trinity Altarpiece has big Italianate pauldrons and no backplate or back fauld https://www.rct.uk/collection/403260/th ... ece-panels I think Toby would say its a Flemish armour with some German influence.

[Chris Flagstad]

There's another example of really long tasstes in Bruegel's Fall of the Rebel Angels

[Chris Flagstad]

another thing is the center crease down the arms and legs seem quite steep and pronounced