# Cuirass (Breastplate and Backplate) in the Late Gothic Style

- By: South German or Austrian
- Date: c. 1480
- Medium: Steel, brass, and leather
- Classification: Armor
- Dimensions: H.: 60 cm (23 1/2 in.)
- Culture: Germany
- Credit line: Chester D. Tripp Estate Fund
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/219955)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/3388d3e5-1d28-b5f5-7a2e-ed1510a2c839/full/!1800,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Sculpted with sleek rippled surfaces and decorative cut edges, this cuirass typifies late gothic German armor. A rare survival, it is fabled to have come out of a church in the Austrian Tyrol at the turn of the 20th century. It may have adorned a shrine figure of Saint George or hung over a noble’s tomb.

The heavily pitted exterior attests to centuries of neglect, and a redblistered area of the interior is evidence it was in a fire. The right side of the breastplate below the waist was carefully restored in London around 1917.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0