Rapier (c. 1620–30): Art, History and Details

Rapier (c. 1620–30) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Clemens Horn (German, 1586–1617).

The work and its context

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

This weapon has an especially handsome configuration of hilt, pommel, quillons, and guard. The blade is also very finely wrought and bears the mark (a unicorn head) of the German swordsmith, Clemens Horn, of Solingen, a town near Düsseldorf. The Latin inscription on the blade reads in translation: "Neither without cause, nor fearfully/Between arms and silent law/ Prize truth and the fight for one's country."

Object facts

• Title: Rapier
• Date: c. 1620–30
• Creator attribution: Clemens Horn (German, 1586–1617)
• Culture: Germany, Solingen, 17th century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel, blued and gilded
• Dimensions: Overall: 111.1 cm (43 3/4 in.); Blade: 89.2 cm (35 1/8 in.); Quillions: 21.3 cm (8 3/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.697

A detail from the museum

The "Pappenheimer" hilt seen here is named after Count Pappenheimer (1594-1632) who popularized the style which offered more protection to the hand with its large pierced plates.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Helen Ives Gilchrist. Handbook of the Severance Collection of Arms and Armor. 2d ed., 1948.
• 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.

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.