Pair of Stirrups (1600s): Art, History and Details

Pair of Stirrups (1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

With the aid of stirrups, the knight could rise (especially during jousts) and, buttressed against the high cantle of the saddle, bend forward in order to gain the full advantage of the weight of his own armor and that of his horse. The footplate of the stirrup gradually became wider, as shown by these examples from the 1600s.

Object facts

• Title: Pair of Stirrups
• Date: 1600s
• Culture: England (?), 17th century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: brass
• Dimensions: Overall: 17.2 x 12.1 cm (6 3/4 x 4 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1919.49

A detail from the museum

Although more fragile than non-rotating systems, the swivel suspension eye allowed the stirrup leather to stay flat against the horse’s flank when it was in use.

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.