https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/superb-revolutionary-war-era-dragoons-1801405922

Alarm bells going off. The design and tooled lines are very obviously to make it resemble a Roman lorica segmentata. Which of course was always described by early modern historians as "leather".

Every detail from Trajan's Column and other later Roman artwork is there: The horizontal lines to delineate the bands; the rounded ends of the bands; the "button" fasteners; the graduated, rounded ends of the "bands" on the shoulder flaps; the row of rounded flaps at the waist.

Either the maker/owner of this "armor" was SERIOUSLY into his neo-Classicism, or it's a costume piece. Or a deliberate attempt at fake "Roman armor".

IF there is documentation for soldiers the 18th century actually wearing such things (call me skeptical), then okay, *maybe*, but otherwise...

Matthew

I thought there was a chance it was spanish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldado_de_cuera
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dragon_de_cuera_.jpg
https://mhiggins.com/items/18th-century-spanish-colonial-leather-armor-cuera/

Leather armour was a LOT thicker than the above example. You can stick a pencil through that.

In support of the hypothesis that this represents the remains of a theatrical costume, I've seen similarly weird "buttoned" segmentata in paintings from the early 19th century depicting Roman soldiers-perhaps the models that posed for those pictures wore similar outfits to this.

That's not thick enough to protect against more then the wind and rain or sparks from musket fireing.
An yes it look likes a costume piece of Roman armour.