Close Helmet (from a funerary achievement?) (c.1590–1625): Art, History and Details

Close Helmet (from a funerary achievement?) (c.1590–1625) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This helmet was originally intended for field use. Later, it seems to have served a funerary purpose, probably as an ornament (known as a funerary achievement) suspended over the church tomb of an unidentified knight. As such, it would have been a rich and imposing symbol of the dead knight's social rank and personal authority.

Object facts

• Title: Close Helmet (from a funerary achievement?)
• Date: c.1590–1625
• Culture: Holland (?), late 16th-early 17th Century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: gilded steel (invaded with rust); red velvet lining, plume holder
• Dimensions: Overall: 33 x 34 x 21.3 cm (13 x 13 3/8 x 8 3/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1787

A detail from the museum

This helmet was decorated with a technique known as fire-gilding, an incredibly toxic process involving mercury that produced a gold finish, now worn away.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.
• Fliegel, Stephen N. Arms & Armor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007.

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.