Waistcoat Cuirass
c. 1570—c.1580
- Medium
- Steel
- Classification
- Armor
- Dimensions
- Wt. 6 lb. 5 oz.
- Culture
- Milan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
- Credit line
- George F. Harding Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
During the last quarter of the sixteenth century, infantry and naval officers began to wear artfully designed cuirasses (breast and backplates) that hinged open with a front seam that mimicked the doublet or waistcoat. This Italian example is decorated with slanted etched bands to look like embroidered trim as well as large rivets down the front simulating buttons. Despite its fashionable appeal, the front seam did weaken the cuirass, and soon after 1600 the fashion vanished.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
