Closed Sallet with Grotesque Face (Schembart visor) (c. 1500): Art, History and Details

Closed Sallet with Grotesque Face (Schembart visor) (c. 1500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A small number of similar painted helmets survive today. All appear to date to the early 1500s. The visors of these helmets are usually in the form of fiercely grimacing human or animal faces, known as Schembart visors after the masked revelers in the Schembartlaufen, the medieval Shrovetide parades. The city of Nuremberg was particularly famous for its Shrovetide parades that were often held in conjunction with a tournament in which the younger members of the city's patrician families, presumably sporting such helmets, participated.

Object facts

• Title: Closed Sallet with Grotesque Face (Schembart visor)
• Date: c. 1500
• Culture: Germany, Nuremberg
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: painted steel
• Dimensions: Overall: 27.3 x 25.7 x 22.2 cm (10 3/4 x 10 1/8 x 8 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1646

A detail from the museum

Masked revelers at the Schembartlaufen of Nuremberg enjoyed food, drink, music, and dancing until coming to an abrupt end in 1539 due to the objections of a preacher.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. 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.