the Red Corizzina at the MET
does anyone have images of the back of this piece? thanks
this one http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbell1975/3934825243/
Remember that this is not real armour. It has been claimed that Bashford Dean chopped up real pieces of armour to make that Frankenstein so he could pretend that the museum had a complete suit of 14th C armour.
There might be a photo in Doug Strong's book on how to build such a segmented cuirass. As you know, this armour was built by Bashford Dean about a hundred years ago out of a mix of medieval and modern parts (particularly on the body defense), so its a dangerous source for 14th century armour.
well could someone offer a more accurate version of this type or similiar cote of plates/corrizina/brig. thanks I would like to have a very accurate version made and I would hate to have a replica of a replica done bad. HELP PLEASE
Eric Fick wrote:
well could someone offer a more accurate version of this type or similiar cote of plates/corrizina/brig. thanks I would like to have a very accurate version made and I would hate to have a replica of a replica done bad. HELP PLEASE


Here's a link to a 14th century reproduction harness by Jeff Wasson. His corrazzina is leather covered but it's construction would be much more accurate than the Met cuirass. Notice the lames of the faulds are horizontal loops, unlike the strange faulds on the Met piece. The Met fauld would prevent you from sitting on a horse because it can't collapse properly as you ride.

http://www.wassonartistry.com/armor.php?w=1380senglish
Churburg
Hi Eric

I think the best example is in Churburg. The pieces from Chalcis also give some good elements from the period but are not a full group.

As far as depictions of the back art is probably the best option. I think Oakeshott sites a choir seat that shows the back of such an armor carved on it. I do not remember which book it is in but probably "European Weapons and Armour".

Best
Craig
My photos of the covered breastplate with faulds in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich. The artifact number for it is W195. To my dismay the display case was covered on the sides so I was unable to get any side-on or from-behind photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomas-b/sets/72157629656588156/

Cheers,

Tomas
Armor from Chalsis/Armor of the Met
This summer I made phone calls to the Arms and Armor department at the Met until I managed to get a more in-depth tour from a staff member and a cordial introduction to the armorer, Mr. Hermes Knauer. I learned things about the Met collection that came as a surprise to me. Before this I was only dimly aware of the dilemmas of conserving, repairing, cleaning, or reconstructing arms and armor . I guess you could say that I knew something about the armor in the context of its own time, but not knowledge about the history of armor collecting and museums. The booklet "Of Arms and Men: Arms and Armor at the Metropolitan 1912-2012" is particularly revealing of the behind-the-scenes and includes plenty of quotes from Bashford Dean and his contemporaries. On one hand I believe they worked miracles in some cases, but it's also true that they did things back in those days that you could never get away with today.

Some of the renaissance harnesses at the Met such as that of Johann Wilhelm attributed to Anton Peffenhauser were acquired in glorious completeness and prime condition, but in 1911 Dean got his hands on armors of Sir John Scudamore and his son Sir James that were in absolutely terrible condition because they had been horribly abused;

"Over a period of many months Tacheaux [Met armorer] cleaned and restored the pieces and fabricated elements where necessary. For Sir John's armor he made the helmet, left shoulder, and two gauntlets and for Sir James' the breastplate, backplate, and two gauntlets. The new elements are accurate in form, and their surfaces, including the etched and gilt ornament, are skillfully patinated so as to blend in with the genuine pieces. They were signed and dated by Tachaux and have always been clearly identified as restorations on the gallery labels."

The armor from Chalcis, it was explained to me, had been found in a lot of pieces. They are on display in gallery 373, in glass cases next to the composite/reconstructed armor which is the subject of this thread.

"The last category includes several hundred elements of armor from Chalcis, the Venetian fortress of Negroponte, on the greek island of Euboea...Discovered around 1840, this unique horde, consisting of body armor and more than one hundred helmets dating to the 15th century was transferred to the Ethnographical Museum (now the national Historical Museum) in Athens. From there in the 1920s Dean acquired by exchange the majority of the body armor and a selection of helmets. The group includes helmet types unrecorded elsewhere, which suggests that they may be of local manufacture. Dean later used some of the Chalcis pieces to make composite "Gothic" armor to represent types of fifteenth century harnesses that no longer exist.

I was told that some of the brass borders on the composite armor had been replaced. It seems that the latten border on the helmet and the gauntlets, and spaulders, and at the top of the cuisses are of the same style and appearance, while the greaves and demi-greaves/poleyns lack that dotted border that appears on the others. I think the right hand gauntlet had its original latten border while the one on the left was replaced in like fashion to its partner. I did not know at the time whether the corrizina was wholly original, made incorporating original parts, or mostly from scratch. There are plenty of loose brigandine plates of various shapes and sizes in the Chalcis exhibit. The composite armor certainly has some peculiar things about it, such as the brigandine with the square faulds and the one-piece spaulders. I wonder how much of this is the restorer's error and how much it is the local peculiarity of the armor from Chalcis?

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