Breastplate (body armour): HEN.M.109-1933

Maker(s)

Armourer: Seusenhofer, Hans

Entities

• Breastplate (body armour)
• Skirt
• breastplate with skirt

Categories

• Armour

Description

Breastplate with skirt for infantry use. The breastplate is of rounded, one-piece construction, with outward-flanged neck and arm-openings. The edges of the flanges have plain inward turns. A rivet-hole for the attachment of a buckle is pierced at the top of each shoulder, while a pair of lace-holes is pierced at the centre of the neck-opening. The lower edge of the breastplate is flanged outwards to receive a skirt of two upward-overlapping lames, the second of which is deeper than the first and has its plain, inward-turned lower edge cut away in an arch over the crotch. The lames are connected to one another and to the breastplate at their outer ends by round-headed rivets with octagonal internal washers in the case of the upper two. All rivets, with the possible exception of the upper left one are replaced. Later suspension-holes have been pierced beneath each armpit and at either side of the lowest skirt-lame.

Notes

History note: From the Austrian Imperial Arsenal. Mr James Stewart Henderson of 'Abbotsford', Downs Road, St Helen's Park, Hastings, Sussex.

Legal notes

J.S. Henderson Bequest

Place(s) associated

• Innsbruck

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1933-03-16) by Henderson, James Stewart

Dating

16th Century, Early#
Production date: circa AD 1510

Note

A breastplate of the same pattern, bearing the same maker's and ownership marks, was formerly in the collection of Sir James Mann and is now in the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds (Inv. No. III. ). Bruno Thomas & Ortwin Gamber, Die Innsbrucker Plattnerkunst, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck, 1954, p. 65, No. 58, identify it as part of a large series of such pieces that were purchased for the Imperial Arsenal between 1508 and 1513. They identify a breastplate in the collections of Schloss Ambrass, near Innsbruck, Inv. No. WA 29, bearing the maker's mark of Oswald Schreiner, as part of the same series (ibid., p.62, No. 45). For information about Hans Seusenhofer and his identified works, see Thomas and Gamber, op. cit., pp. 34 & 64-5.

South German, Innsbruck

The breastplate and its skirt are bright with extensive patination overall. The breastplate shows a pattern of streaks over the belly. Both the breastplate and lowest lame of the skirt show some delamination of the metal.

This fine, undecorated breastplate was made in the Imperial armour workshops established in Innsbruck by Emperor Maximilian I in 1504. It is stamped with the mark of the armourer Hans Seusenhofer, and the Bindenschild (arms) of Austria. The Seusenhofer family made some of the finest armours produced in Europe during the first half of the 16th century. This plain breastplate was made as part of a large order from the Austrian Imperial Armoury between 1508 and 1513.