Left Arm Elements from a Boy's Armor (Lower Cannon, Couter, Rerebrace)
c. 1560 (some modern)
- Medium
- etched and lightly embossed steel with traces of gilding, leather
- Classification
- Arms and Armor
- Dimensions
- Overall: 17 cm (6 11/16 in.)
- Culture
- Germany, Augsburg
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Medieval Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
These elements once belonged to a full suit of armor that would have been made for a young boy. Decorated with etching, embossing, and gilding, the original suit would have been impressive. Dressing your sons in small custom suits of armor was popular with the wealthiest nobles. They would have been worn for parades and ceremonial occasions and once outgrown were often kept as mementos. Made for the left arm, the rerebrace or upper cannon protected the upper arm, the couter the elbow, and the lower cannon the forearm.
