So, let me preface this by saying that I'm not the one who originally found these pictures, they showed up in a facebook conversation in the group "XIV century European Armours"

Now, with that said, I present to you detail-pictures of the gauntlets off of one of the characters of the Beautiful Fountain in the german city of Nuremberg:

http://imgur.com/a/DGP46


The uncoloured, trashed statue is the original, the painted one is the recreation.
But the gauntlets are the same.

Now, I dug greedily and deep across the web, and the time-frame of the construction of the statue is, indeed, 1385 to 1393 (and painting and gilding continued until 1396)

https://books.google.se/books?id=OD8g4E ... im&f=false

Furthermore, Heinrich Beheim (presumably the Older), the creator of the Statue, died around 1403 (Wikipedia) whilst some sources have put him at "Leaving Nuremberg" in 1406 (I believe it was the very book I linked that mentions this).

All in all, what we have is:

A statue with documented construction between 1385 and 1393.
A maker who allegedly died 1403
And the statue has some really rather atypical gauntlets.

So what on earth do we make of this?

Are the gauntlets an attempted retrofit?
A poor, undocumented repairwork?
A hybrid to stay in fashion but with times?
A completely uneducated mason (but why then the early 15th style lamed mitten parts?)
Or, actually, late 14th century, south-german mitten gauntlets?

Anybody else feel like chiming in? Because I feel as if I've struck gold and I've already talked a bit about this with my local armourer, and wether or not these are only a statue-thingie, or something we can dare say fully historical, I am sorely tempted to have him make a pair.

Because seriously.

This is cool.

[ Linked Image ]
Gauntlets like these may look easy to make but they are in fact difficult.
I am not sure whether they are an attempted retrofit or not as well as their origins.

The gauntlets of the "Schöner Brunnen" of Nuremberg arouse everytime a big discussion when somebody looking for mittens in the late 14th century stumbles across them...

In fact they are a very specific depiction and a rare one too, for there are neither sculptural nor illuminated parallels. Additionaly for example the "princely figure" (possibly Charles IV.) in the Berlin Bode-Museum which is attributet to the same Master and the same time shows "ordinary" hourglassgauntlets, although the sculpture itself is masterly formed and shows great details to even seamlines on the Backing of the Plaque-belt and is a Masterpiece of nurembergish art of that time.

The second sculpture which is often called to confirm the Schöner Brunnen Gauntlets are the Mittens of the wooden St. Georg of the "Germanisches National Museum Nürnberg" but as discussed at other points, the Dating of the sculpture is way to early and should point more to the 1420s and younger.