The Wallace Collection has begun posting its entire collection online.

http://www.wallacecollection.org/wallacelive

We owe our thanks to Tobias Capwell and The Wallace Collection staff for undertaking this massive and important project!

Search for objects by type or by accession number (tip: search for "longsword" to see an amazing collection of early 15th c. German swords, with detailed stats). It's a work-in-progress of course, but already wonderfully helpful.

Some of the "longsword" dates seem surprisingly late. A477, for example, was originally dated ca. 1510, but here it's 1580, with a 14th c. blade. That's a huge difference and seems to contradict everything I've seen elsewhere about the development of swords in the 16th century. I wonder what led them to change the date.

Thanks Sean,

Another bookmark and what looks like will be a terrific resource. The marvels of the electronic age and the internet.

Cheers

GC

Sean, Thank You so very much! :) This is wonderful and I want to express my personal appreciation to you for making this available and known to us, this is definitely being bookmarked!

Once again, "myArmoury" and one of this website's fine and learned members has done something to help me in my quest to learn. This is yet another example why I happily donate to myArmoury, in gratitude for the continued education I am exposed to in this fantastic website!

Thank you once again Sean!

Bob

This is great; it was the only museum that did not allow photography in it when I was in England last year (private collection not public). The collection of maille shirts is awesome and you can see the gores in them in person; I made drawings of the shape of the shirts and the gore placements from my personal notes last year.

Sean I can't thank you enough for pointing this out! I own the catalog, but even so having it readily searchable is VERY nice!

Did you noticed that many swords are stated quite short, maybe it is just the blade lenght? But in some stats they say it is the blade lenght and in some not. And it would be weird that the longsword is about 98 or 100cm long and 1.80 or 2kg heavy... If it is just the blade, then it would be just fine.

For those who may have missed it, here's what Tobias Capwell wrote about this elsewhere on this forum:


Dear All,

I thought I might jump in at this point and give something of an inside (if informal) update on arms and armour goings on at the Wallace Collection. We are very busy and I assure you I am working hard to make this important collection more accessible than ever. So, here is a brief summary of what is going on:

European Arms and Armour Photography Project:

For the past two years we have been busy photographing every object in the European Armouries. We are still hard at it, but theoretically this huge project will be complete by the end of September 2007. I am currently supervising photography of helmets- all the edged weapons are done, and we will soon be moving on to complete armours. Once the project is complete we will have incredibly detailed photography of every last spring-catch and pommel button in Hertford House.

Other Photography Points

I should mention that photography in the galleries of the Wallace Collection is now permitted, provided you sign in at the security desk and obtain the appropriate badge (free).

Obviously once we are entirely digital costs for official images should go way down. Way down.

Publications

Obviously the big photo project should lead to new publications. It is somewhat hard to say what will happen for certain, but at this point I am developing a book along the lines of '100 treasures from the European Arms and Armour Collection'. This will basically involve (I hope) a double-page spread for each treasure, made up of a full page image and a page of text, the latter also featuring a contextual image of some sort (a portrait that depicts the object or one like it, the object appear in a contemporary sketch book, related piece in another collection, or just a comparative image from a manuscript or something).

In the back of this book we hope to include a DVD-Rom that includes multiple images of every object in the collection, plus a summary description and notes by yours truly, plus PDFs or something like of all previous catalogues and publications, all the way back to Laking.

BUT, both the book and the DVD depend on dedicated funding coming from private donors, grants, etc. I am working hard to continue to attract major private support for this very important project, and hopefully it will all work out.

As a shameless personal plug aside, I noticed a query about my new book on the Glasgow collection: you can order it by e-mailing the Glasgow head of publications- susan.pacitti@cls.glasgow.gov.uk . I hope everybody likes it.

Special Exhibitions

Sword people out there might be interested to know that we are planning a special exhibition on swords and swordsmanship, featuring not only some very special swords but also many important works from the Lord Howard de Walden collection of fencing books and manuscripts, currently in the care of the Wallace Collection.

Oriental Arms and Armour

Not really my area, as we have a separate Curator for the non-European armour and weapons, but I thought I could just mention that we are beginning the very long re-cataloguing process for this part of the collection. We have never had a dedicated Oriental curator before and so very little work has been done in this area. But of course it sorely needs to be done. Laking's 1913 catalogue is now very, very out of date and the whole thing needs to be entirely reappraised. So you may not see anything new on the Oriental front for a while, but we are on the case.

Must dash; competing in a joust in SW Wales tomorrow morning, and right now I am in Warwickshire!

Yours sincerely,

Toby Capwell

What can I say?

WOOHOO!

To finally have access to pictures of some of the finest examples of weapons and armour in the world is incredible. :)

WOW!!! What a great site! I sure hope this one makes it's way to the links page of myArmoury!