Battle Axe (late 1500s): Art, History and Details

Battle Axe (late 1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The axe has been a favorite weapon in Europe for as long as armor has been worn. Although it was useful as a simple tool for chopping, battle axes could become a way of expressing personal style. They could be decorated and embellished without impeding their function. Inset into this axe head is a copper rosette.

Object facts

• Title: Battle Axe
• Date: late 1500s
• Culture: Italy, late 16th Century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel, inset with copper rosette
• Dimensions: Blade: 8.3 cm (3 1/4 in.); Head: 27.3 cm (10 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1599

A detail from the museum

The haft or wooden handle of this axe is missing.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], 1900.
• Gilchrist, Helen Ives. A Catalogue of the Collection of Arms & Armor Presented to the Cleveland Museum of Art by Mr. and Mrs. John Long Severance; 1916-1923. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1924.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Helen Ives Gilchrist. Handbook of the Severance Collection of Arms and Armor. 2d ed., 1948.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.