Cleveland Museum of Art

Gothic Breastplate

Date: c. 1485
Medium: steel
Culture: South Germany or Austria
Department: Medieval Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 96530

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Individual armor elements, like this breastplate, were shaped in ways that would make their surfaces as deflecting as possible. The contours of this breastplate, along with the pronounced vertical ridge down its center, were for precisely this purpose. This breastplate consists of two primary plates of steel fastened at the center by a rivet.

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Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Credit line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance
Provenance: Seymour Lucas, sold to Frank Gair Macomber | -1916: Frank Gair Macomber (1849-1941), Boston, MA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1916-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Part of a LinkedCulture topic

European Renaissance Armor Components
These objects are all pieces of defensive armor and military equipment from 15th-17th century Europe, primarily from major armoring centers like Italy, Germany, and France.
500 objects from 4 institutions