Parade Spear (c. 1570–1600): Art, History and Details

Parade Spear (c. 1570–1600) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This weapon is etched with the imperial Habsburg arms on one face and the Burgundian stave cross of St. Andrew on the other. In the 1500s, parade spears of this type became part of the insignia of infantry and light cavalry officers in the imperial army. In 1548 Titian painted an equestrian portrait of Emperor Charles V holding such a spear. At his abdication in 1556, Charles split the Habsburg inheritance between his son, Philip II of Spain, who was awarded control of Burgundy, and his brother, Frederick, who received the imperial title and the family's central European lands. This spear probably belongs to this later period and its purpose was likely ceremonial.

Object facts

• Title: Parade Spear
• Date: c. 1570–1600
• Culture: Germany, possibly Augsburg
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel, etched; brass lugs; hexagonal wood haft with leather straps; woolen tassel
• Dimensions: Overall: 208.2 cm (81 15/16 in.); Blade: 29.5 cm (11 5/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1789

A detail from the museum

The Habsburg coat of arms, seen here, features a double-headed eagle.

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.
• 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.