Object Title

Three-quarter armour

Three-quarter armour

Date

1550

Object Number

II.137

Provenance

Presented by the National Art Collections Fund, 1939. From the armoury of the Earls of Pembroke at Wilton House, sold Sotheby's 14 June 1923, to Hayward for S J Whawell, sold Sotheby's 5 May 1927 , bought by William Randolf Hearst, purchased for the Armouries.

Physical Description

Light field aermour with a close helmet. The right gauntlet is restored. The backplate is missing.

Dimensions

OverallDepth420 mm
OverallHeight1292 mm
OverallWidth790 mm
MountHeight1787 mm

Associations

Bibliographic References

A.R. Dufty and W. Reid, European Armour in the Tower of London, 1968, plate XXXVIII.

J. Hayward,' The armoury of the first Earl of Pembroke', Connoisseur, April 1964, 225-30, fig. 9.

C. Paggiarino, The Royal Armouries, masterpieces of medieval and renaissance arms and armour, Milan, 2011 volume 2

Notes

The armour was either for William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1501?-1570), or for his son Henry, 2nd Earl (1534-1601). This light field armour is an unusual type for Greenwich at this time, having a solid breastplate rather than the splinted 'anime' found on other contemporary field armours including two others for the earl of Pembroke, one complete with horse armour now in Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries no. 1939.65.a-d, one surviving as a cuirass only in the Royal Ontario Museum Toronto. It is either 'my lords felde armor of Erasmus makieing parcel gilte with the furniture' or 'an armor for my L. Herbert enamelled and parcel gilte with his furniture' in the Wilton House inventory of 1558. See Hayward 1964.

Information

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