[Jean de Buren]

Family paintings from the 17th century in which armor is worn. Take a look.

http://threebeehives.blogspot.com/2010/01/17th-century-armor.html

Regards, Jean-François

[Adam D. Kent-Isaac]

Cuirassier-style armour was, indeed, the primary armour for posing in portraits long after armour stopped being used on the battlefield on any large scale, and you will see portraits of leaders (especially in Germany, France and England) dressed up as cuirassiers well into the mid and late 1600s and even into the 1700s. I have a portrait of King George III - yes, the third - in cuirassier's armour. I can't find it anywhere online, but I have it in a book of photos of armour from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

For a family portrait in 17th century armour it is damn hard to beat this one of four generations of Princes of Orange:



Some other interesting ones:

"Bluidy Tam" Dalyell, 1615-1685:



Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory, 1634-1680:



Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, 1658-1705:



If you look at the paintings of important military leaders on both sides of the English Civil War, nearly all of them will be wearing armour. There were only a very few fully armoured regiments of horse in the ECW - Arthur Haselrigge's "London Lobsters" are the best-known (and I use that term loosely) - but all the generals at least wore armour in their paintings. The late Greenwich style has a very distinctive look, which is finely contoured to fit the body, with exaggerated, swaggering curves and a peascod shape to the cuirass.



Charles II in English armour:



Charles II in French armour (the exaggerated scalloping of the lames, and the huge number of rivets arranged in decorative rosettes, are a distinctively French style) :