Meet the Expert: The Emperor’s New Armour

okay well good afternoon everybody i can see our audience is filling up rather rapidly there so we'll just give it a few more seconds for everybody to join and then we'll make a start at one o'clock okay that's one o'clock so good afternoon everybody and welcome to the wallace collection online and welcome to our final talk for the year uh and the emperor's new armor um the career and works of conrad zoisenhofer uh this of course uh the final talk this year as a part of our meet the expert series uh and today's talk will be delivered by dr toby capwell so i'll be handing over to toby in just a few moments time but in the meantime as always there's a few bits of housekeeping just to get us started so first of all if you're having any difficulties either viewing on zoom or on youtube please don't hesitate to drop us a message either via the chat or q a functions on zoom or via the chat on youtube and i'll make sure to get back to you as quickly as i can you can also use these functions of course to send in questions for toby so make sure to get those in throughout today's session and i'll put them to toby before the end of our talk uh and also of course uh today's talk will be recorded so if you miss anything at all don't worry uh you'll be able to catch up on our youtube channel uh as soon as the talk becomes available finally if you require closed captions uh you can select those on zoom at the bottom of your screen there by simply clicking the closed captions button and you should receive closed captions as standard on our youtube channel so with all that boring business out of the way uh alamouti hand over to toby for today's talk to you thank you ali uh thank you everyone for coming before i begin i would like just to acknowledge the huge debt we owe for our present understanding of the innsbruck school of armor making to a number of important armor scholars of the last hundred years in my own study the works on this subject by oswald graf trapp sir james mann claude blair bruno thomas and orton gamber mario scalini allen williams ian eves and tom richardson have all been essential sources of both information and inspiration and personally i am very grateful to the present count and countess trap for their encouragement to stefan krause for his comments and assistance and to pierre turgenian for his groundbreaking work on the emperor maximilian and his patronage of armors so lavishly presented in the exhibition the last night held at the metropolitan museum of art in 2019. anyone interested in the story of armor in europe will quickly encounter places in northern italy and southern germany whose history is inextricably linked to the ancient art of armor armorers worked all over europe but the cities of milan brescia augsburg lanswood and nuremberg loom especially large in the literature and rightly so the production of plate armor required certain natural resources iron ore of course but also timber to fire forges and kilns and to make charcoal essential for turning iron into carbon steel the armor's craft also be fitted benefited enormously from immediate proximity to fast flowing rivers for transportation of raw materials and finished products but also to drive the heavy water powered machinery necessary for armor making on a large scale devices such as great trip hammers used to beat lumps of metal into flat plates and glazing mills equipped with ranks of grinding and polishing wheels the great medieval centers of production had already had ready access to all of these resources in abundance this is just one of my favorite views of lanshoot it's a 17th century image but it's useful for our purposes it's right on the uh the ezar this very fast flowing river and uh you can see that just about everywhere that they can be placed you have water wheels uh often sometimes you know double double wheels set in different configurations even on the little side flowing streams and things uh the importance of water power can't really be overstated for for uh an armor-making city like lonsford and the those water-powered wheels are are powering equipment like this wheels that do both the heavy grinding taking away the hammer marks and smoothing the surfaces of armor plates and then also very fine grinding and cutting is done on on different size wheels unlike lanswood augsburg and milan innsbruck seems not to have had a significant community of armors before the second half of the 15th century there are early mentions of armors working for the archdukes of tyrol in nearby hall also an important center for the minting of coins but it's not until the 1460s that innsbruck started to become known for armor production interestingly by the early 1460s archduke sigismund of tyrol was already presenting fine innsbruck armors as very prestigious diplomatic gifts to his brother-in-law king james ii of scotland in 1460 to dieter von eisenberg archbishop of mainz in 1461 the archbishop needed armor he was fighting a war at the time to his six-year-old second cousin or nephew maximilian mora maximilian in a moment and also to maximilian's tutor wilhelm von raikkonau prince bishop of ikestat both in 1465 and to king matthias corvinus of hungary and croatia in 1468. uh one of the first names to be associated with the makers of fine armor in innsbruck is trites conrad trites was working in innsbruck by around 1452 and over the next 20 years his family established themselves as one of the city's most important workshops it has been suggested that the trites's may have been italian immigrants from tretso to the immediate east of milan now the duke of milan kept a firm hold on the armorers in his dominion and craftsmen could only emigrate if granted special permission it is possible that the tyrolean nobility foremost members of the match and trap families might have played a role in convincing the duke to allow the trites to settle in innsbruck thus laying the foundations for what would become one of the greatest centers of the armorer's art in the 16th century actually uh the heart of the innsbruck armor making community was not initially in innsbruck as such but rather to the north and slightly to the east in molau this is a 19th century map you can see the uh the river inn flowing through this is the center of innsbruck here and the uh and the uh the archduke's palace and then mulao where most of the armor is settled initially is up here in the top right corner i think this is hugely interesting again from the point of view of water power because if you look at the flow of the river mulao is right in that top bend and rivers always flow fastest and strongest on the outer bend uh uh of of in in in any outer bend so that is where the water power is strongest and hey presto that's where the armorers went these were absolutely ideal circumstances for armors to practice their craft they had good working conditions the right natural and technical resources and most importantly a local aristocracy keen to buy armor it's very important to note that innsbruck had been the capital of tyrol since 1429 and i think it's no accident that almost all of the surviving armor made in innsbruck before the 16th century is preserved at nearby kerberg castle the seat of the match family since the 13th century and which passed to their heirs the traps in the 16th century gowden's von match an important nobleman and military commander who served both the archduke of tyrol and the duke of milan was the trites most important patron a number of pieces made for him by various members of the trites family are preserved at kerberg for most the a simple but very elegant armor for war the one on the on the right here here we see the trites workshop establishing a new armor style fusing german technical construction with distinctly italian aesthetics this armor is almost devoid of raised fluting and its smooth pristine surfaces maintain a kind of harmony with the pure human form crucially it was of course not just the design of the plates that determined the effectiveness of an armor the quality of the metal was paramount as was the armorer's ability to get the most out of his material steel an alloy of iron and carbon can be heat treated to improve its protective attributes hardness and toughness if good steel armor is well hardened and tempered by careful heating quenching and reheating it can be made twice as protective as armor forged of wrought iron good steel armor therefore can provide better protection while also being lighter in weight innsbruck armors not only had access to the best steel they also had special knowledge of the difficult and subtle processes of heat treatment in only 20 or so years innsbruck had become famous throughout europe as the source of the best plate armor writing probably in the 1480s and certainly before 1491 the renowned master of arms pietro monti tells us that if anyone wants to wear armor that is light and protective he should use the very best iron and steel the best iron in steel is found in the german city of innsbruck masters there test armor with crossbows armor made in innsbruck is outstandingly strong because of its temper duke sigismund was the first inventor of this excellence high-ranking noblemen like to take credit for things by the late 1480s more armorers from other great armor-making centers had relocated to innsbruck to gain access to its resources and clientele and hopefully to benefit from its increasing fame the augsburg armorer hans pruner is an especially interesting example pruner not only moved to innsbruck he also married a member of the trites family and adopted the distinctive italo-german trites style several important surviving examples of pruner's work are also preserved at kerberg showing that he too was almost certainly working for gaudin's von match an even more important commission came once again from archduke sigismund in 1488 for a fine war armor presented as a gift to the archduke's ten-year-old third cousin or great nephew philip the handsome duke of burgundy son of maximilian this remarkable little armor delivered in 1489 is today preserved in the constitution's museum in vienna it's now missing its helmet but this armor nevertheless shows how completely han's printer had absorbed and indeed advanced the trite's style again it's very plain there's a bit of a germanic fluting on the legs but the overall plainness is very distinctive of this style as is the uh the h asymmetrical shoulder defenses uh an italian innovation adopted in innsbruck um the various other keonsbrook features like the the gauntlets that are integrated into the lower cannons of the of the arm defenses uh this is very much a development of the the foundation established by the trites uh in the last 10 or so years important though this commission was it was the relationship with prince philip's father maximilian that shaped the most illustrious chapter in the story of armor making in innsbruck maximilian of the house of habsburg is perhaps the most important figure in the history of the northern renaissance although he was the son of the holy roman emperor friedrich iii an heir to the german throne early in his life maximilian had no significant lands or titles of his own consequently his father sought to expand german influence in western europe with a marriage between maximilian and mary heiress of the powerful duchy of burgundy diverse territories located in modern day france belgium and holland mary's father duke charles the bold had been killed fighting the duke of lorraine and his swiss allies at the battle of nalcy in january of 1477. a catastrophic defeat that exposed burgundian lands to seizure by louis xi king of france maximilian moved very quickly he married mary of burgundy in august 1477 to become gerosaurus duke of burgundy now he was faced with defending his new duchy from its french and swiss enemies a foreign interloper who did not speak the local languages was not easily accepted however and maximilian soon found that he had to win over the burgundian and flemish nobility not just through favors and diplomacy but through personal feats of arms to do this he needed good armor which would protect him in battle while also transforming him into the very image of a strong heroic and enlightened prince god's rightful representative on earth in his career as a patron of the armorers art maximilian started off quite well the armor he wore on his earliest campaign in burgundy shown on the right was a virtuoso performance by the celebrated master lorenz helmsmead of augsburg this and subsequent armors made for maximilian by lawrence helmsmead are utterly unique creations in the high gothic style at once advanced technology for combat and stunning works of body art armor at this level was not simply protective equipment for fighting it was also an expressive sculptural and decorative art form that transformed the artist's patron into the living embodiment of power and righteousness the personification of chivalry itself complete plate armor was what distinguished the aristocratic warrior or knight from all other fighting men it was also a proclamation of wealth and status therefore armor was a fundamental aspect of maximilian's identity as a renaissance ruler and a key element of the iconography of his power wearing such things into battle maximilian knew that he was not only very well protective protected but also that people looked at him differently by equipping himself in such harness he was able to manipulate his public image he could change the way his identity status and character were expressed visually to the world according to the needs of a particular situation and i think it's actually quite revealing that he was soon commissioning armor from local flemish craftsmen to create a warlike version of himself that was more familiar more relatable to the burgundian and flemish aristocracy maximilian was crowned king of the german lands or king of the romans as it was called in 1486 and then in 1493 more importantly for today's discussion he became archduke of austria when his elder second cousin sigismund gave up the title innsbruck now became maximilian's primary residence which as you can perhaps imagine was an extraordinary development for the local armor making community maximilian by this time had close relationships with armors working in southern germany france and flanders and yet his demand for the best armor was exceeding the production capabilities of the various independent workshops contracted to him maximilian continued to require diverse armors for his own personal use but also following the example of his predecessor the archduke sigismund he began to present armors as luxury gifts to members of his family and affinity and to foreign rulers and diplomats in these circumstances it became more important than ever before that an armor from maximilian was something very special the emperor's own armors had not only to be highly advanced and innovative in their technical design and construction they also had to be utterly original works of decorative and expressive art such unique creations could not be achieved purely by working with individual craftsmen independent craftsmen maximilian needed arrangements that were more exclusive more personal more intimate maximilian's physical presence in innsbruck attracted yet more armors from other places and the local armor making community continued to grow one of the craftsmen who probably arrived sometime in the 1490s was conrad zoisenhofer zoisenhofer like hans pruner and a number of other immigrant armorers settling in innsbruck came from the great armor-making city of augsburg unfortunately we know nothing of his early life and his induction into the craft of the armorer but that training probably occurred in augsburg he is first recorded in 1500 by which time he was already a skilled armorer working in innsbruck he had clearly distinguished himself in this vibrant community of armors by the time maximilian made the decision to establish a court workshop there in 1504 conrad zeissenhofer was employed for a period of six years to work exclusively for maximilian as head of his new workshop now zoisenhofer was responsible for making armors for maximilian's own personal use and also for presentation to maximilian's relatives supporters and peers this was an enormous challenge given that zeissenhofer only had two up nevertheless he appears to have been hugely successful in this role the image this image here by hans berkmeyer is undoubtedly the most important surviving picture of a renaissance armorers workshop it shows maximilian visiting zoi snow for while he and his two assistants are hard at work the craftsman on the right is busy hammering out fluting and the one in the middle is making an articulation lame while the master himself is making an armet a type of enclosed helmet designed primarily for heavy cavalry use in 1509 some considerable time before his six-year contract was due to expire zoisenhofer was made court armor for life this promotion also brought him more help in the workshop his staff grew to six armorers four polishers and two apprentices and their output increased dramatically in just four of the following years from 1511 to 1514 the innsbruck court workshop produced over a thousand complete armors and armor parts the wallace collection includes several pieces made under zeissenhofer at the court workshop during this period some have been acknowledged and well known for a long time while the most important example was only identified earlier this year the more familiar pieces are a helmet and set of complete leg armor all that remains of what was once a very fine armor for war the helmet is an armet a type developed in italy towards the end of the 14th century very similar in fact to the one we just saw zoysino for making in the berkmeyer print the armet is designed to fully enclose the head by means of hinged cheek pieces fastened at the chin allowing the helmet to open up to accept the wearer and provided with a pivot advisor to protect the face the leg armor is extremely fine sculpted to follow the shape of the wearer's legs like a steel skin and including integral sabatons to cover the feet interestingly zoisenhofer was sometimes ordered to make armor in the italian style as stated specifically in surviving records for example in the order for a gift armor for the papal legate cardinal raymond perrault in 1504 i can't help but wonder if these pieces in the wallace collection are fragments of one such armor not a truly italian armor but rather the german idea of one if we compare the wireless pieces to another armor made by conrad zeusenhoff for around the same time you can see what i mean this field armor now in vienna was made in 1511 for matt house lang von velenberg a nobleman from augsburg and one of maximilian's most trusted advisors this armor is an early example of a german renaissance style that we still refer to today as the maximilian style this fashion is quintessentially german with these groups of raised ridges or fluids embellishing most of the surfaces this armor also has an armet but it is of the classically german form with a fluted skull and this very distinctive so-called bellows type visor the wallace collection armet which is a precise contemporary of the velenberg armor is planar more italianate and the visor takes the angular sparrow's beak form typical of italian armets since the early 15th century the leg defenses represent an even stronger contrast both in their technical construction and in their aesthetics the whole sculptural character is different as is the decoration there is some fluting on the wallace legs but only on the side wings and the sabbatons to reiterate we're not talking about the true italian style of the early 16th century but rather a german version of the italian style a fashion that as we've seen had been evolving in innsbruck since at least the 1480s if not earlier we also see the visual contrast of these two styles in the pictorial art produced under maximilian's patronage as well as court armors maximilian of course also had court artists one of whom was the painter and printmaker hans berkmeyer here are a magnificent pair of prints made by burke meyer for maximilian in 1518 a decade after he had become holy roman emperor the one on the right is an equestrian portrait of maximilian himself wearing a magnificent german armor and mounted on an armored horse its pendant on the left is almost a mirrored portrait of saint george or perhaps it's another image of maximilian in the guise of saint george the contrast here as in the comparison with the wallace and velenberg armors is very striking the plain smooth surfaces of the saints italian armor versus the profusely fluted spikier armor of the emperor the horse armor and other accoutrements are quite different too it would seem not at all surprisingly that conrad zoisenhofer was expertly literate in both styles as well as being a remarkable demonstration of sculpture and metal the wallace fragments also carry very fine etched and guilt decoration in the form of elegant borders and strap work bands etching was a revolutionary technique for decorating armor and at this point it had only appeared in the 1480s and coming into use more frequently towards the very end of the 15th century thus etching had only been known for around a generation when it was employed on this armor and on the velenberg armor here the methyl was first coated in an acid resistant material like wax or pitch called the resist the etcher then scratched his design out of the resist with a needle-like graving tool exposing only those areas to the biting of the corrosive etchant a chemical paste the active ingredient of which was usually mercuric chloride or sublimate as it was called historically the central motif on the decoration of the wallace pieces is the pomegranate one of maximilian's personal devices the pomegranate was a well-known symbol of the passion of christ the husk splitting open to reveal the ruby red seeds inside being evocative of the wound in jesus's side we might hope that such a personal emblem might perhaps tell us something about the identity of the original owner of this armor unfortunately i don't think it can narrow the options down very much this could conceivably have been made for maximilian himself but on the other hand we can imagine that it might have been quite important for devices associated with maximilian to be present on just about any armor given as an imperial gift a number of other fragments survive which are closely comparable to the wallace parts most of them are incorporated into a composite armor originally assembled in the late later in the 16th century to represent maximilian in the hall of heroes installed at ambrose castle at innsbruck by maximilian's great grandson ferdinand archduke of the tyrol this set was constructed using parts from at least three different armors of maximilian and at least two different horse armors the helmet shoulder defenses and body armor for the horse were made by lauren's helmsmead the curas is a flemish one worn by maximilian in the wars in burgundy and the shaffron arm and leg defenses and the gauntlets were all made in the imperial workshop under conrad zeissenhofer on the cuff of one of the gauntlets is a date 1511 and it seems reasonable to take this date as a good indicator of when the wallace fragments were made there is also another gauntlet once in the collection of sir walter scott and which remains at scott's house at abbotsford in scotland to this day uh this gauntlet might even belong to the same armor as the wallace collection parts so 1511 was a busy year for conrad zoisenhofer during which he and his staff made many fine armors for some of the most important noblemen of the age these included armor for friedrich the wise prince elector saxony and charles de croy prince of sheme one of maximilian's most important allies in burgundy and godfather and tutor of the emperor's grandson the future emperor charles v there was also the velenberg armor already mentioned and several others decorated in silver and gold for king henry viii of england and other prominent english noblemen and other armors for heinrich iv duke of brunswick jacob fuchs von fuchsberg another important terolian aristocrat earhart von polheim a member of an upper austrian noble family with close personal ties to maximilian eloisio gonzaga marquis of castel goffredo a young italian condotiero in the service of the empire and an unfortunately unidentified duke of scotland another very important development in the history of armor occurred in 1511. in that year an innsbruck armorer named hans rabiler started building an armor for the emperor's grandson the 10 year old archduke charles future emperor charles v this armor was utterly original in design sculpted to create and steal the appearance of the most fashionable dress of the moment the so-called puffed and slashed style seems to have originated in the flamboyantly distressed clothing of the famous german mercenaries known as lanzconnect here the outer facing material of the doublet and hoes was cut with slashes to reveal an interlining of a contrasting color color combinations and slashing patterns varied endlessly the style had burly muscular military associations at the same time as projecting fantastic luxury the style rapidly caught on in aristocratic courtly circles and since armor is clothing it was only a matter of time very little time in fact before armors and the armors in the puffed and slash style appeared and they surfaced first in innsbruck in the form of this little armor note how the puffing and slashing is arranged in horizontal bands with these with those on the legs seeming to droop under the influence of gravity this armor was unfortunately never finished it's possible that the young archduke outgrew the armor before it could be completed he may have been growing faster than the armorer could work or it may have taken too long to begin the project in the first place it's also possible that the armorer was not being paid on time and so he stopped working on the project giving the boy time to outgrow it before it could be worn the next attempt at this new ostentatious style was also made for charles probably as a second run at the same gift idea and this one was completed in 1514. this masterwork of renaissance armor making was not made by hans rabiler but in the imperial court workshop under conrad zeissenhofer and is preserved today in the constitution's museum this is the earliest complete armor to follow contemporary military and court fashion not only does the form of the steel plates evoke the billowing volume of textile dress it actually incorporates real textile in its construction very rich purple silk velvet has been laid into these vertical recessed bands and then overlaid with these fabulous pierced copper gilt panels interestingly after the plates had been finished and etched zoysenhofer sent the new complete armor to augsburg where the go where this goldsmith's work was added notably between 1512 and 1514 when this second boy's armor was on his workbench conrad zoisenhofer and his staff also made a near identical one for the impressive six foot two frame of king henry viii of england this adult version of the design was delivered to king henry in 1514 by hans zoisenhofer conrad's brother who had moved to innsbruck from strasbourg to work in the imperial workshop it's likely that hans worked on henry's armor and he probably needed to be present at the delivery to carry out a final fitting with the king personally in england sadly the only fragment of this historic gift from the emperor maximilian to his young ally king henry is this helmet now in the royal armories the mask is a portrait of the 55 year old emperor himself and on the skull we can see the recessed panels that would have held the velvet and copper guilt strap work now long lost this daring idea of rendering the fashionable base or pleated skirt in steel seems to have become a signature of the imperial workshop here's another one made under conrad zeusnhofer between about 1512 and 1515. this one is somewhat less ornate than that of the boy's armor but it is still very fine uh you can see the diagonal slashes placed over etched and gilt bands simulating strips of cloth of gold note also these and the embossed ribs between the slashed panels those will become more important in a moment again henry viii's gift armor had a steel base like the one on the boy's armor and it seems to have made a big impression on him inspired by maximilian's example and perhaps frustrated by the fact that he could not respond to the gift with one in return henry set about founding his own court workshop which ultimately would be based at the royal palace at greenwich this armor was made just a year or so after the receipt of the gift armor this is the first creation of henry's own court workshop staffed by flemish and german craftsmen this is a fascinating armor i think because it embodies the process of henry's quest to create his own unique court style here he's combining elements of different contemporary styles in an effort to produce something uniquely henrician the majority of the armor conforms to the italo flemish style which dominated in england at that time but to it inspired by the work of the innsbruck masters henry has added one of these distinctive steel bases although we are now looking at the work of craftsman in england this is nevertheless a fascinating demonstration of the far-reaching influence of the innovative creations of the imperial workshop at innsbruck the year 1515 also brings us to the other newly identified work by conrad zoisenhofer in the wallace collection this impressive foot combat armor has been somewhat misunderstood for a long time it was once identified as simply german circa 1540 in the early 20th century the attribution was revised to augsburg circa 1525 with the etching attributed to the great augsburg etcher and printmaker daniel hopefur the hope for attribution was based on the identification of the decoration on another armor then at the historical museum in berlin as his work the etching on this armor made for friedrich ii duke of legnica in many places is closely similar to that found on the wallace collection armor case for this hop for attribution was thorough detailed well-observed and completely wrong and it established a misconception that endured for a century daniel hopefully is well known to have worked closely with the helmsmeads and he did certainly etch many of the greatest masterpieces made under lauren's helmsmead's son coleman in the 1520s therefore the attribution attribution of the etching on the wallace collection armor to hopeful via the misidentified legnica armor then led to the tentative identification of coleman as the armor responsible for the hammer work of the wireless collection armor the idea that the wireless collection armor was made in augsburg then remained firmly in place for a very long time and gradually caused it to increasingly be thought of as slightly inferior work if you move forward with the idea that it was made in the 1520s in augsburg perhaps by an assistant or follower of coleman helmsmead the wireless collection armor starts to look perhaps a little less glamorous but this is because the path of investigation quickly leads one to compare it with armors in the lens connect style that really were made in the 1520s by coleman helmsmead and here they are on the left the remains of elon's connect garniture made in 1523 by coleman for wilhelm von rogendorf a military commander in the service of charles v and on the right these parts from a slightly later armor in the same style but with even more lavish decoration probably made for jersey hercules radziwill a powerful polish nobleman in about 1525 the roggendorf armor in particular is one of the most famous of all renaissance armors and was already a celebrated attraction of the imperial armory in vienna by the early 19th century the opulence of these amazing billowing sleeves rendered in steel in a totally original way by coleman helmsmead lends these armors a unique drama a direct comparison of say the rogendorf armor and the wallace armor is a little unfair especially when one is suffering under the misapprehension that the two armors were made around the same time in the same place maybe in this light the wallace armor looks more perhaps conventional but this is the wrong way to look at this armor my recent research has shown that in fact this armor was made not in augsburg circa 1525 but rather in about 1515 at the imperial court workshop under conrad zeusnhofer this makes it along with the two boys armors of charles v one of the earliest examples of the lunsconnect fashion rendered in steel made nearly a decade before the helmsmeat examples a style created in innsbruck and only later adopted by craftsman and augsburg just look at it alongside its closest relatives this is one of many examples in the history of art of when you know where and how to look the truth starts to become clear the tight horizontal slashed bands flanked by raised ribs are already present on the unfinished boy's armor they appear in a slightly varied form on the second one the skirted armor of charles v and again on the wallace armor also look at the treatment of the slashes with these very fine engraved borders these are everywhere on the products of the zeus and hofer workshop between 1510 and 1515. here they are on the boy's armor on a pauldron from an otherwise lost field armor in vienna and on this fabulous zoysin hoe for jousting helmet now in moscow uh incidentally there are also elaborations of this engrailing wherein each cusped point or every other one becomes a little club or trefoil through the addition of a trio of etched dots such variations of the engrailed border are found on the boy's armor on parts of another contemporary innsbruck lonzconnect garniture now in the royal armories in leeds and on the duke of legnica's armor now in moscow remember the misidentification of the etching on this armor is what led to the mistaken attribution of the wallace collection armor it turns out that the moscow armor is yet another creation of the zeissenhofer workshop also made around 1515 and also carrying many of the other classic soisenhofer signature features which we can now recognize not just the engrailed borders but also the alternating sunken banding on the breast and back plates the small recessed slashes the converging flutes on the elbows which recall the composite maximilian armor from ambrose and of course the fabulous steel base there's one other thing about the etching on the wallace collection armor that i must mention as we've seen this armor along with the two boys armors of the future charles v represents one of the earliest expressions of the idea of representing rippling cloth in hardened steel this idea is this armor is sculpted to look like puffed and slashed textile and fire gilded to suggest a cloth of gold interlining showing through the multitude of slashes so far in that it follows the example of the second boy's armor but the wallace collection armor adds something new to the idea as well all of the smooth areas between the slash bands have been etched to simulate the pattern of rich voided silk velvet this decoration has also been executed in what was then an innovative new method of etching let's call it raised etching here rather than scratching out the design from the resist the design is being painted on with the resist this produces a quite different visual effect since it is the background being bitten down into the metal while the design remains proud now with most uh german raised etching the background is filled with tiny granulations created by painstakingly applying minut dots of resist with a small brush or perhaps even a pig's bristle but here uniquely we don't have these granulations we find these little u-shaped forms instead these tiny details represent a weaving technique called a lucciolato in italian which refers to stars shining in the night sky if we look closely at a piece of real italian silk velvet of the period we find these little loops of gold wire that have been pulled up through the velvet pile they add a unique sparkle to what is already very rich textile isn't that wonderful on the wallace armor a revolutionary new etching technique has been used in a cunning way to suggest playfully that what we are looking at is in fact not steel but luxurious velvet conrad zoisenhofer died in 1517 and maximilian followed him to the afterlife less than two years later their unique relationship an artist and his patron endures in a way on maximilian's cenotaph in innsbruck here this extraordinary monument is surmounted by a life-sized sculpture of the emperor kneeling in prayer of all the armors he might have worn in this image the one he has chosen is a zoisino for armor maximilian founded the imperial court workshop as one of many ways to project his power and express his identity and now his armor plays that role for eternity uh if you'd like to read more about my work on the lance connect armor in the wilds collection do have a look at the recent volume arms and armor history conservation and analysis essays in honor of david edge uh with the correct identification of this important armor the wallace collection has gained a masterpiece by conrad zoisenhofer one of the greatest ever practitioners of the art of armor i feel a little as though we have actually acquired a new work of art and that for a curator of a closed collection is very exciting indeed thank you well thank you so much terry for uh absolutely fascinating talk uh just looking at our comments on youtube there we've had uh thank you so much uh for this presentation um we've had a fantastic stuff through uh from uh let me just have a look there uh foo was here um lots of lovely comments and and i couldn't agree more it's been thoroughly enjoyable just to answer a quick question for anybody who's joined uh the talk a little later today uh today's talk will be recorded and the recording will be available on youtube uh very soon so don't worry if you have missed anything but we've got a few questions already so i'm going to jump to those straight away first of all on our q a we have a question here from elaine uh who's asked when did mail evolve into a hard plate armor uh mail never evolved into hard plate armor mail always stayed exactly what it was and it continued to be used uh it never really felt totally out of use and it still has certain applications today um the the evolution of armor in the in the late middle ages is really uh the story of constant reinforcement and augmentation where you know armor of text padded textile and mail starts to become strengthened with plates of hard materials and then you know the plates cover more and more of the body but you know the male is a separate material uh with different protective properties and it it always had its job to do right through uh the whole history of of the subject thank you very much toby a question from our youtube audience now um anthony has asked uh toby i have a question uh could a man own a full set of armor without owning any land absolutely yeah i mean you can have uh armor as long as you can afford it really it uh it's um it's not dependent on on any other circumstances really either you have to be able to afford it though or you need to be a fighting man or or someone employed by in the household of uh of a nobleman who will buy it for you fantastic thank you another question now from david on on youtube uh who's asked we may have to go back a little here in the presentation but uh what is the name of the young man in the puffed and slash red and white outfit uh in the portrait shown earlier oh yeah yeah that um that's a portrait that actually came on the open market fairly recently i don't know where it went um but i picked it because it's there's so many different iterations of of lance connect fashion i picked that one because the the precise construction matches the wallace armor quite nicely um in that you have the uh the the the patterned material between the puffed bands and so forth and the and the horizontal uh narrow bands of puffing that is one of the electors of saxony it might actually be um now if i say anything i'll be making it up it's not difficult to look up one of the whoever was the early with the the the duke elector of saxony in the early 16th century thank you very much a question now from uh our zoom audience uh this is from uh fred rile uh who's asked or rather said uh there's a comparable puffed and slashed arm piece uh in the reserves at glasgow with a raised central band flanked by two narrow raised ribs uh is there a study on this piece uh to see if seisenhofer whether it's a zeissenhofer or innsbruck piece yeah i i discussed that vambrace in my chapter on the wiles collection armor in david edge's festrift um that one uh is a is an important link uh technically between all the some of uh the various puffed and slashed pieces uh and it's also unique in its own way in a couple of respects the problem is it's now very worn it may have been acid cleaned or it may just have never been finished and there's no sign of etching on it now but from what you can see i think it it may very well be also a zoyson hofer piece from from some other uh child's armor long lost thank you very much we're into the last few minutes now so i hope we can squeeze in one more question if that's okay uh suzanne has asked uh here on zoom um you spoke about the u-shaped pattern in the resist yeah with regards to the etching uh is there any evidence of this being brushed on or was it a stamp tool that was used to apply a more consistent uh shape oh when the when the etcher is is applying the resist to make the elucialato on the armor yes i think so yeah yeah well you can actually see here in our finishing slide you can see them and they're not stamped it's all applied freehand with a with a very fine brush one at a time they're not even remotely consistent not identical they have a kind of consistency uh etcher's german etchers are very very good at at keeping the distribution kind of random but also quite even uh if you start drawing these things you know on a on a post-it note or something you very rapidly discover just how difficult it actually is and on a complete armor like this there's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of these little loops uh it's it's quite remarkable certainly i i don't envy that task having to put on all these little sort of crescents quite a job well thank you so much toby we we've come to the end of today's uh talk uh and thank you to everyone at home of course for your questions and lovely comments as well we've had uh audience members joining from all over the world so it's really fantastic to see uh everyone out there today watching along at home if you've enjoyed today's talk and please do take a look at toby's recent expert choice video which is linked in the description on youtube uh or if you're watching on zoom is available on our youtube channel and finally just to say of course that uh do keep an eye out for next month's meet the expert video or stream uh which will be uh assistant curator arthur bile looking at uh some of our daggers here at the wallace with our honed in uh uh talk which will be broadcast on the 20th of january and of course keep an eye out for his video which will be released on the first so finally just a thank you to everyone at home and thank you to toby and goodbye

Channel: The Wallace Collection

Views: 1,733

Keywords: Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, London, Hertford House, Sir Richard Wallace, Art, Gallery, Museum, Fine Art, Heritage, History, 17th Century, 18th Century, 16th Century

Id: Ol8YfCraE1o

Length: 62min 31sec (3751 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 16 2021