I have passed this question by the Royal Armouries already, but would like further views.
I know from a reasonably in depth study of manuscripts and tapestries that armour of the mid late C15th could be coloured - probably red oxide or black oxide. I cannot belive that the observations of many great illustrators are wrong.
However it seems that surviving armour has probably had too much attention from people wanting to make it really shiney and very few pieces exist which show any evidence of paint.
I know white harness probably predominated, but does anyone have any thoughts about colourings used on armour both to protect or decorate. Would they 'shine' for instance. I have seen C16th/17th dull black examples and shiney examples and modern black armours which shine.
Does anyone know of any photos of painted examples (if this has been covered before I apologise)

Cheers

Robin

This thread might interest you:

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...light=knee

Note the example further down the page showing a bright finish but with browned (?) elbows, knees and brow reinforcement.

The site I use for most of this research shows a great variety of finishes. I've certainly seen polished black surfaces in other contemporary artwork. I'm thinking of one work in particular that shows a blackened sallet with gilt edges. IIRC, the artist suggests high polish. This is the problem though, mentioned in my thread above--the most dynamic views of 15th c. battles are more cartoon-like than realistic. We don't get much fine surface detail, whereas the paintings I've been looking at lately often depict armour surfaces in much greater detail.

Very interesting topic Robin.

Sorry I can't help with photos of painted examples. I thought I might mention that I always assumed that the many examples of blue armour from period sources would have been coloured by controlled heating followed by quenching. Depending on the level of polish given to the piece before this process, different levels of shininess can be achieved. This can be used both as a decoration and to provide some level of rust protection.

My personal favourite suit of armour, although from the late 16th century, uses this combined with gilding to great effect. I don't have any pictures on me at the moment but it's worth a look. It's a harness made by Peffenhauser for Christian I, Elector Count of Saxony, displayed in the Royal Armouries at Leeds. Perhaps it was the decorative gilding on this piece that allowed it to be spared the over-zealous polishing by early collectors, rumoured to have removed the original finishing on many armours.

I hope this helps and I look forward to reading what others have to say on this topic.

Darren.

I realized I didn't really answer your question. Some "black and white" armours are painted, IIRC. I don't know that I've seen earlier painted armour.