Greetings,
The staff here (Nathan) was nice enough to give me the priveledge of posting information on my Parade Armour reproductions. I will try to keep this short but have quite a lot to say... I have been collecting antique arms and armour for years now. It started with swords and turned into a hairy green monster of collecting anything good I could get my hands on. I was lucky enough one day to purchase a shield at auction from the collection of the Higgins Armoury Museum. The shield turned out to be a museum copy, from designs by Etienne Delaune made for King Henry II 1555. I polished it up and was blown away at the detail and workmanship of this fine shield. At that point I was hooked. I gave up collecting swords for the time being and focused my time and money on aquiring Ornate Armour from around the world.
To date there are over a dozen pieces of Antique Museum quality Parade Armour in my collection.
I realized I could not possibly be the only one with lust for embossed iron, and decided to go about reproducing them in small numbers.
I started talking to foundries, sand foundries, lost wax foundries, ceramic cast aluminum foundries... To make a long story short, sand looks terrible, lost wax costs $1000 a foot, and making a ceramic or any permanant mold of size costs as much as a car. I was told more times than I can count, "Go To China" I really wanted them to be made in the USA or Europe.
They needed to be light so they could be carried at events, parades, SCA.

In the end I made them myself. They are true reproductions with no loss of detail, as they are formed atom by atom in solid copper and nickel silver. I know everyone will want to know specifics and I am not ready to give all my secrets away just yet. I should make it clear that this armour is not made to be hit with a weapon. I cant imagine why someone would want to do that, but ya never know. I make them quite thick, 5 pounds of 99.9 pure copper goes into the small shield. If hit hard it will dent and that would be a crying shame. I did plan to experiment with re-inactor (Battle Ready) versions but decided it was rediculous and am not ready to dodge lightning from the Gods.

I am still working on a website and pricing details. I plan to reproduce up to 500 of each piece over the next decade. Each shield, helmet, piece of armour take 100s of hours to complete. All shaping, finishing, polishing is done by hand.
I am looking for honest feedback from the members here, well whatya think?
P.S, sorry for not having better photo backdrops, they do look much better if you save and zoom them.

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More war in Heaven
Léonard Morel-Ladeuil 1866

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Made for the King of France...
Etienne Delaune first worked under King Henry II and produced many designs for the decorative art in France. In 1546, he worked as a goldsmith in Paris and became the king’s chief medallist in 1552.

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Made for the King of France...
Etienne Delaune first worked under King Henry II and produced many designs for the decorative art in France. In 1546, he worked as a goldsmith in Paris and became the king’s chief medallist in 1552.

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Who called the cavalry?
Etienne Delaune first worked under King Henry II and produced many designs for the decorative art in France. In 1546, he worked as a goldsmith in Paris and became the king’s chief medallist in 1552.

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Its good to be the king
Etienne Delaune first worked under King Henry II and produced many designs for the decorative art in France. In 1546, he worked as a goldsmith in Paris and became the king’s chief medallist in 1552.

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Paradise Lost!
Léonard Morel-Ladeuil 1866

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Milton or Paradise Lost
Léonard Morel-Ladeuil 1866

Sam,
The detail on those shields is simply amazing. True works of art! I bet if you were to patina them you couldn't tell the difference from the originals. I am anxious to see what else you can do, which I imagine is probably just about anything, I better get busy and save up money.

Jean Thibodeau Wrote
What is surprising I think about very ornamental period armour is that many where used for serious fighting or at least worn by the very rich and powerful in battle were the risk of having to fight in the armour would have been a possibility: So much of the highly decorated stuff would still be " generally " useable in an emergency to a degree as the embossing could weaken the armour due to the extreme embossing and these could also catch the point of a weapon in contrast to more practical deflecting surfaces.

Thanks for the comments Jean,
It is true the rich commissioned very detailed and embossed harnesses. They may have even fought in them at tournaments or when challenged and happened to be wearing their best suit. Most of the pieces we will be reproducing were specifically made for royalty to be worn at court and parade. The pieces took years to complete and cost hundreds of thousands of todays dollars to fund. I could make them battle ready but is that the responsible thing to do? As is they are very strong and can take a blow, but will be damaged, dented. The other option would be to cast them from Iron, but then they are so heavy they could not carried comfortably and the loss of detail would be substancial. I cant get the visual out of my mind of some young man having cutting practice on a piece of reproduced armour made for the King of France over 4 centuries ago. I dunno, maybe people want that sort of thing and I am just being sentimental.
Sam

I received a question offline about the Milton. It is not a period shield. That said, it is in my opinion the finest repousse work in history. It won a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition and was touted as the best work that could be done. It is also the most difficult piece to reproduce. I saw this as a challenge and decided to make this the first reproduction.
Sam

wow, but im pretty sure i would never let some one hit that with a sword or a lance lol

Jean,
All very good points. When I spoke of Cast Iron, It was in the context of what options are possible to create a quality reproduction that can at least be carried outside if you felt like it, and is made of metal. The kind of detail required to get a piece like this right, dictates the options (Very Few) to reproduce it. I do know by calling something Armour dictates that it is for protection and should be functional. Even the parade armour of the period was made from iron plate, probably hardened. It is not possible with conventional means to create a reproduction using this material and be in any way affordable to most people. The process used creates a near perfect copy and material, time is very expensive. Has anyone seen the price of metal lately?
So thats my dilemma.... Should It not be called Armour? Should it be called medieval Art?
I think by its nature its still Armour! You would be more protected using one of these than an African Wicker shield :D
Sam

I completely agree that making armour this ornate also as functional as possible would mean it costing something in the 5 figures and might be almost impossible to do today using period methods and skills. Only a handful or armourer/artists could have managed it in period after years of apprenticeship to the very best armourers.

So, yes the focus should be " Art " first and wearability second, with actual use being not an issue i.e. the shapes being right and the material solid.

Compromises for technical and economical reasons maybe ? But the point of these is mostly the beauty of the low relief sculptural " HIGH ART " : A bit like getting a top quality copy of a major classical painting as close to the original in as fine detail as possible.

Some of the "finest" helmets in museum collections were never intended for the field. Deep embossing and chasing a la the Negrolis thins the steel to a degree unsuitable for combat. These were displays of wealth and power. If the Met, et al. still call that armour, I think you can call your fine work armour as well. It's perfectly historical (for the 16th c. at least) to make armour never intended to be used in combat (and in fact unsuitable for such use).

Sean,
I do agree but see Jeans point as well. I think its appropriate to call it "Parade Armour" as there are many examples called by this name that are in no way combat ready as you so astutely pointed out. Karl of Germany has some of the best links to Ornate/Parade Armour around. This particular example is made from copper. Looks kinda wacky to me, but royalty has its quirks.

http://www.karlofgermany.com/master21.htm

My point is, that as long as its made from metal, and every attemp has been made to recreate the size, shape, thickness and detail of the piece, it can be called Parade Armour.
I have some crazy daydreams some days. I do fight SCA and love the plain functional Armour needed to protect the family jewels and all, but have pictured Royalty at court wearing Ornate Armour and carrying shields of my reproductions.
Maybe I am crazy to think that if I put proper handles on the shields that people will take them out to events, show them at court. I do plan to reproduce a Negroli Cuirass (See Picture) Is it possible that someone would want to wear it at event if I make it wearable?
Am I crazy?

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Reproduction of Italian Grotesque Cuirass, Giovanni Paolo NEGROLI (This is the real deal and was made from the original. Thought to be the only copy on record. The original is in the Louvre and the back plate is lost or missing.

This may be a better picture of the Henry II piece

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Very impressive stuff Sam ! I don't think I have ever seen anything like the reproduction you have made... I can't imagine how much work you did to achieve this... must have been a lot of trials and errors... but the final result is really sublime.

A wearable version of those shields would be very nice for people attending fares or for use as high quality theatrical props... like the weapons supplied by Arms & Armor to the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

Am I crazy?[/quote]

No. You create for a different market. Mercedes builds a 4 x 4 SUV that I wouldn't mind owning but I wouldn't take it Deer hunting.

Hugo,
Thanks for your comments. There has been a lot of trials by fire and many errors to get to this point. I cant even calculate the time and money spent so far. My wife has been pretty great through all of it ,and although cautious she did not shoot me down even when it wasn't going so well. It helps that I am absolutely nuts over the art ,and the attention to detail the artists showed so very long ago is inspiring. I could not bring myself to give up knowing I am only reproducing these amazing examples and think of how much work it would have been to spend 3 years making a single shield.
It is to the point now that I must sell some pieces and re-invest in the project to produce additional pieces.
Great tip about theatre props. I know they use quite a bit of latex and plastic reproductions in Movies/Theatre, and I am always blown away when when they show the making of these productions and show close ups of the rubber armour.
Maybe there is a market there for more accurate reproductions...
I do hope to have a website up and running in the next couple months.
Sam

Greetings,
I am really excited about a new addition to our family of pieces from designs by Etienne Delaune. I have been searching for 3 years for a museum copy of the Henry II shield in the Met. (Museum copies were made before the invent of photography as a way to share the Art and design with archeologists and other museums).
I was beginning to think it was never reproduced!
The battle scene in the center depicts the victory of Hannibal, and the Carthaginians over the Romans at Cannae in 216 B.C.
I expect to struggle with the gold inlay throughout the strapwork borders, but will try to make the best reproduction that can be done.
It may take several months to get a piece finished. At that time I will post updates
Sam

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Original currently in the Metropolitan Museum.

I thought I would bump this because I love Sam Haverkamp's work and because I want one of his shields so Badddd!

I just had to look up this post again to salivate.


Allen

Somehow, I missed this topic. Somehow, it's not pages upon pages long!

M.