[Adam D. Kent-Isaac]

This is something I've thought a lot about, and I've come to have an opinion on it: namely, that full armours in museums ought to be placed on ground level on equal footing with the viewers, and not put up on pedestals.

Why? I think that their height should not be exaggerated. People should be able to stand next to these armours as if the real man who wore the harness was standing right there in front of them. It would give you a much better sense of what the body proportions were like and make them seem more "real." I realize that they may look more "grand" and imposing when they're up on a raised platform, but I think for the sake of presenting a sort of "living history" to the viewers, it's better that they be standing on the ground with everyone else.

Also, on some armours (Henri II at the Met comes to mind) there is extremely elaborate artistic work on the crest of the helmet, and it's not that easy to see when the armour is raised up high on a pedestal.

What do you think?

[A. Spanjer]

I agree.

It annoys me to no end when I go to any sort of museum and they have things displayed so that they are hard to see.

For one thing, I take lots of photos, I like displays where things can be photographed well, and easily. I also agree that pedestals distort the reality of the size of the armour

[Sean Flynt]

Might be just a practical matter--you need some kind of heavy, broad base to support the weight of the harness without ANY chance of it toppling over. Could also be a matter of curatorial perspective. Most art museums emphasize the artistic and historical value of the overall harness rather than the functional martial details. So, it's less important that the viewer get anything but a general impression. You should visit the Museo Stibbert in Florence if you ever get a chance. Their foot harness is displayed in the open at the level of the viewer. You can get in close and look at details that would be almost invisible in an elevated vitrine. I don't recall how their displays are secured, but they didn't strike me as being elevated at all. Might be on pedestals, but mounted short.

[Sean Flynt]

Some of the Stibbert displays. Heaven.

[Adam D. Kent-Isaac]

OK...is that a totenkopf-visored Maximilian armet? If so, are there any other, closer pictures of it? I must know! That looks like it might be one of the coolest things I've ever seen!

[Eric Allen]

Most of the armor exhibits I've seen (e.g. the Metropolitan in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tower of London), the armor is displayed at ground-level, or at most on a slight (less than 6 inches) plinth to hold the armature supporting the armor. The only complete suits I've seen on a raised pedestal are the suits for young children, which raises it up to adult eye-level.

[Adam D. Kent-Isaac]

I was at the Met just last month and I remember a lot of the armours there as being fairly high up. George Clifford's armour in particular was on top of a little round pedestal, which was itself on top of a raised ledge in the display case. It was elevated high up and I kept trying to judge how tall the armour was, because it seemed like it was about my height but I couldn't be sure. Henri II's embossed armour is definitely high up too, on a pedestal-on-a-pedastal like Clifford's.



There is one amazing Maximilian harness right when you walk into the armour court, on your left, that is just HUGE. It looks like it could be maybe 6'2" but it's also wide and burly as hell. But up on the pedestal it looked more like 6'5". I was really curious about what the actual height was.

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

Unless someone tracks down the legharness for that monster and the Met acquires it, we'll never know. I would say that unless the fellow had really short legs like the legharness currently associated with it (I'm speaking proportionally, as that is a huge legharness!), our boy was in the six and a half foot range, like several surviving armours from the House of Hanover.

P.S. I HATE pedestals ! A quarter inch thick steel plate with a good footprint works just fine.