Breastplate 1550-60
Innsbruck. Officer quality black and white with embossed vine and leaf decoration. Moveable gussets at the arms. Large, tapered, roped rolls at the arms and neck all coming to a point at the center. Original buckles at the top of the gussets, one damaged. Rolled borders of the arms augmented with a narrow embossed line at the center of the gusset. The neck accented by a raised polished section with a parallel raised liine and a small secondary chevron at the center. Roping aparently filed - the rolls with an overall even (not embossed for the ropping) surface. Breastplate with a central crease and deep rounded point at the center. De-laminations on the inside in the lower section of the point and some small ones on the surface. One old patch near the center of the flare and one later patch at the left fauld rivet hole. Black refreshed, white areas lightly cleaned. Gusset rivets replaced. Note from Ian Eaves states:
This is actually a nice piece: an officers quality black and white armour made in Innsbruck about 1550-60.
The main maker of such armours was Michel Witz the Younger (see for example an armour preserved in the arsenal at Graz). Particularly close in style is an armour by Sebastian Katzmair of Innsbruck in Schloss Churburg (no 118 in the Trapp , Mann catalogue of 1929 as I recall).
The breastplate decoration is very similar in form to the breastplate on CH S118 in Churburg (illlustrated page 329 of the new 1996 catalogue and plate LX (b) in the 1929 Mann and Trapp catalogue) and the armor illustrated as plate 74 in the 20th anniversary catalogue of the Lauder collection at the Neue Gallerie (in that case, with an undecorated cuirass).
Weight: 6 pounds 9 ounces (2975g). Height 13 1/2 in from center of neck roll to center of waist flare, 15 1/2 in. from top to bottom of center point of the flare, 11 3/8 in. wide at the waist, 13 1/2 in. under the arms. Slot in the gussets app. 3/4 in. long. Thickness: highly variable even in small areas. Thickest spot found in a quick check 0.179 in. Generally the center is 0.14-0.15 in. Tapers down to 0.084 at the wearer's left side under the arm.
If you have any questions, please send them to Wade Allen
This site last updated Wed Oct 18 10:01:53 EDT 2023