Breastplate from Hussar's Cuirass (c. 1580): Art, History and Details

Breastplate from Hussar's Cuirass (c. 1580) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This style of breastplate, with its numerous articulating lames, was probably used by a Hungarian hussar, a type of light cavalryman. The steel plates were originally blued-now turned russet-and etched and gilded with strapwork bands. The rows of vertical holes once provided gilt-brass settings for stones or glasspaste jewels. The effect would have suggested the semi-oriental costume and armor of the Near East favored by Polish and Hungarian armies of the late Renaissance.

Object facts

• Title: Breastplate from Hussar's Cuirass
• Date: c. 1580
• Culture: Germany, Augsburg or Hungary, 16th century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: Steel (originally blued, now russet), etched and gilded strapwork bands;
• Dimensions: Overall: 42.3 x 35 cm (16 5/8 x 13 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1521

A detail from the museum

The breastplate’s contours, like the ridge down the center, were designed to deflect arrows and other projectiles.

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.
• Fliegel, Stephen N. Arms and Armor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Museum, 1998.

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.