Chanfron in Maximilian Style (c. 1510): Art, History and Details

Chanfron in Maximilian Style (c. 1510) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The chanfron was the primary element that protected and decorated a horse's forehead and face. It consisted of a plate of steel contoured to the horse's head from its ears to its nostrils. Normally, two holes were cut at each side of the forehead for the ears, and earpieces were sometimes riveted around their edges. This example, however, was forged in one piece. It belongs to the transitional period between the Gothic and the fluted armors introduced by Emperor Maximilian. The hinge at the top is for the attachment of the crest plate.

Object facts

• Title: Chanfron in Maximilian Style
• Date: c. 1510
• Culture: Germany, Nuremberg (?), early 16th Century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel
• Dimensions: Overall: 59.2 x 33.2 x 10.1 cm (23 5/16 x 13 1/16 x 4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1845

A detail from the museum

Nuremberg was a chief armor production center and gained international renown; products from here were exported throughout Europe.

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.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Helen Ives Gilchrist. Handbook of the Severance Collection of Arms and Armor. 2d ed., 1948.
• 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.