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Sword (Pappenheimer Rapier)
c. 1630
- Medium
- Steel, silver, gilding, wood, and leather
- Classification
- Arms
- Dimensions
- 122.2 × 25.4 cm (48 1/8 × 10 in.)
- Culture
- Netherlands
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
- Credit line
- Pauline Seipp Armstrong Fund, through prior acquisition of the George F. Harding Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Both mounted cavalry and men on foot favored this form of sword during the height of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). The large guard fitted with pierced plates protected the user’s hand from heavy cuts and thrusts. The weapon is often termed a Pappenheimer rapier after the German Count Gottfried Heinrich zu Pappenheim, an imperial field marshal during the conflict. This is an unusually ornate example, with silver and partially gilt lion heads chiseled onto the steel hilt.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
