[David Evans]

Tripped over this on the web

First the portrait

http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/zoeken/as...mp;lang=en

second the buff coat

http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/zoeken/as...mp;lang=en

supposedly the leren kolder is that worn by Hendrick Casimir I

Odd things pop out. The Armour is barely groin length, even with tassets attached. The helmet makes it clear that this is foot armour, if it was intended to be worn on Horse there would be a different style of helmet, look at http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/zoeken/as...mp;lang=en for an example.

[Matthijs Witsenburg]

This is from an era where firearms were common. The leren kolder (leren = leather, the term kolder I only know in malienkolder = maille shirt) is meant as a bulletproof vest, not as armour against swords and lances.

[Adam D. Kent-Isaac]

He probably served as an infantry commander, hence the pikeman's armour he is wearing in his portrait.

[Simon G.]

The armour and even the people in these two paintings look strange, somewhat deformed. I see it's by the same painter. Would you know of similar armour painted by other people? Perhaps it's a peculiarity in this painter's work.

[David Evans]

another one by the same painter is this

http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/assetimage.jsp?id=SK-A-204

And you're right, the armour does look out of proportion.

[Thom R.]

[Paul Hansen]

[David Evans]

equally there's a group of painting where the painter has used almost exactly the same armour to depict a cluster on British Nobles and Gentry in cuirassier armour, including Charles I. Which paintings were then copied and used to depict Oliver Cromwell in a "Kingship" manner.

However. We can't tell if the body of the painting was done without the patron present and then his head added in. Nor can we deduce a great deal about the armour, other than the painter may have a problem with gauging sizes..:-)


What is interesting is that we appear to have a buff coat that, if correctly provenanced, can be linked to a painting that shows that the buffcoat is meant to be worn under armour by an officer who is fighting on foot.

if you look closely at the buffcoat there is a very short distance from the base of the armpit to the seam of the skirts. That is probably the waistline and may be sitting on the natural waist line. Which is a little higher up than most people wear their trousers now....

[Thom R.]

Paul my comment was a more general one, although that particular portrait still is rather odd..... a pikemans armour with a buff underneath and spurs? the whole just seems rather odd to me, and proportionally, the whole portrait is off. (but that is not uncommon)

David brings up another good point - we know that these kinds of things were more of a production oriented business with stock pre-painted backgrounds and even stock paintings where just a few personal details like the head would be painted in upon a paid commission. tr

[David Evans]

Do you mean this image ?

[Henrik Bjoern Boegh]

[David Evans]

remembered this oddly short arsed buff coat image that Daniel posted some time back

[Daniel Staberg]

I'm not sure I would call it "odd" after all that lenght and general style is very common in Dutch paintings of soldiers from the first decades of the 17th Century. Infact they are so common that I wonder if they may not be buffcoats at all but rather leather jerkin. Thinner and of lower quality leather they would still have the same colour as a buffcoat.

[David Evans]

Odd was a bit of a strong word.......

A buffcoat for horse is generally long enough to cover the thighs when sat. The 3 examples posted are clearly shorter than that but I'm not convinced now that that the shorter buffcoats being shown are thiner than a Horse buffcoat.

2 reasons spring to mind. The first is the posted link. That buff coat of Hendrick Casimir I just doesn't look any thinner than a Horse buffcoat. The Littlecote examples are as thin as 2mm in parts. A Mark Beabey buffcoat varies from a thicker 5mm to 6mm for the body so there is some clear variation.

The drape of the buffcoats shown in paintings puzzled me at first but someone posted this picture from this example in the V&A

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O78845/coat/

That shows just how much a 17th century buffcoat can take a "cloth like drape". It's been explained to me that modern leather is treated with hot oil to speed up the process. Which gives a firmer product.

[David Evans]

Forgot this painting of Hendrik I found. Dressed for horse with a nice looking lobster pot on the floor next to him in a buffcoat thats near groin length. I'm wondering if it's almost an artistic convention. Can anyone think of a painting that shows a buffcoat that reaches the thigh in length ?

[Adam D. Kent-Isaac]

OK, that last painting is absolutely exaggerating the body proportions. Nobody actually looks like that. The legs are made to look much longer than they would actually be, and the torso, overly brief. It's a matter of artistic style.

[David Evans]

I tripped over a reference in Osprey's Imperial Armies of the Thirty Years' War vol.1 relating to the purchase of arms and armour from Wurzburg for a regiment of Foot. Enough equipment was bought to arm a regiment of 3,000 men, with 1,500 muskets, 300 caliver, 200 halberds, 1,000 pike, 1,200 sets of armour and 1,851 buffcoats.

Does anyone know any more about this reference as it would be interesting to see a little more detail ?

[Daniel Staberg]

Yet another error by the author, the two ospreys on the Imperial army are filled with significant errors which show a lack of both research and knowledge. In some parts text has simply been copied from older works such as Parker and Delbrück and slightly rewritten before being inserted in the Osprey text.
The 'Würzburg purchase' is taken from Heilmann's work on the Bavarian army, he quotes from an unnamed archive document. The 1851 'buffcoats' are in fact "1851 Schüssenröcklein" i.e "Shooters coats" which is what cassocks were called in German. And as far as i can tell the purchase is neither from Würzburg nor from 1625, Heilmann actually writes "In the begining of the period" ("Im anfang der periode"), Würzburg & 1625 are simply connected to the previous quote. My guess is that the authors does not read German and thus simply missed the two quotes are from separate documents. Or he is in turn quoting/copyign someone who made that kind of error.

[David Evans]

Daniel

Thanks for that, I couldn't work out why they would buy 1,851 buffcoats for a regiment of 3,000 men, It just didn't add up. 1,250 would make some sense, 1,200 would make better sense but 1,851 made no sense.

That's still an odd figure thro. I make it about 3,000 men who need a coat/cassock issuing, so why only 1,851...? Is it a typo or transcription error ?

[Daniel Staberg]