Pommel Plates from the Garniture of Rudolf II (c. 1571): Art, History and Details

Pommel Plates from the Garniture of Rudolf II (c. 1571) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Anton Peffenhauser (German, 1525–1603).

The work and its context

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

These plates, once part of a saddle, are from a tournament armor for man and horse made for the sons of Emperor Maximilian II, archdukes Rudolf and Ernst. Most of the remaining elements of this armor are still in the collections of the Imperial Armouries in Vienna. The decorative pattern (in the imperial colors of black and gold) forms elegant knots, with distinctive foliage and hop sprigs filling the loops.

Object facts

• Title: Pommel Plates from the Garniture of Rudolf II
• Date: c. 1571
• Creator attribution: Anton Peffenhauser (German, 1525–1603)
• Culture: Germany, Augsburg
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: blued, etched, and gilded steel
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1888

A detail from the museum

Once part of a saddle, these plates protected the rider's thighs.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Rudolph Lepke’s Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin. R. Zschille’sche waffensammlung. Mar 21-22, 1900.
• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. Vol. 3, 16th century. [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.

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.