Gothic Bevor (c. 1480): Art, History and Details

Gothic Bevor (c. 1480) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A bevor is a piece of plate armor that is intended to protect the chin and upper throat. It normally supplemented an open helmet like the sallet. Gothic plate armor achieves its beauty not by surface decoration by the simple elegance of its line, seemingly inspired by contemporary gothic architecture, from which it gets its name.

Object facts

• Title: Gothic Bevor
• Date: c. 1480
• Culture: Spain (Hispano-Flemish), 15th century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel
• Dimensions: Overall: 27.4 x 16.3 cm (10 13/16 x 6 7/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1920

A detail from the museum

A mark showing a square with a dot at the center is on the inside of this helmet; so far it is unidentified.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. Vol. 1, 14th & 15th centuries. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], [1900-1915].
• 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.