IDENTIFIERS ----------- id: 18603 accession number: M.1-1943 DATE AUDIT ---------- created: Saturday 6 August 2011 updated: Thursday 11 August 2016 DESCRIPTIVE DATA ---------------- object type: Backplate for heavy field or possibly siege use, with etched decoration. Formed of a single plate of unusually great weight, slightly shaped to the shoulder blades. The straight neck-opening and the arm-openings are decorated with roped ribs at their edges in imitation of turns. The left end of the rib at the neck has later, filed, transverse lines. The upper corners of the backplate are each pierced with a pair of rivet-holes for the attachment of shoulder-straps or, more probably, hasps. The slightly convex sides of the backplate are each pierced with five holes, possibly for the attachment of extension-plates that were fitted within the edges. They are represented by impressions in the corrosion-products of the inside of the backplate as well as by a fragment of one of the plates retained by a pair of externally-flush rivets occupying the top two holes on the left side. The remains of similar rivets also occupy the lowest three holes on the left side and the top and central hole on the right side. The left side is cracked at two points. The lower edge of the backplate is flanged outwards to receive a skirt. The skirt was retained by a rivet at each side and by an internal leather secured by a pair of rivets at the centre. The rivet-holes are now vacant. The backplate is fitted a short distance in from each side, just above the waist-flange, with a round-headed rivet that secured the missing waist-belt that fastened around the front of the breastplate. The backplate is decorated with finely etched ornament in bands that border the neck and arm-openings respectively. The ogee-shaped band at the neck-opening and the bands at the arm-openings are each bordered by a pair of narrower bands, of which the outer one is etched with circular pellets on a blackened and stippled ground. A similar band of pellets decorates the base of the backplate, just above the angle of the waist-flange. The main ornament consists of scrolling foliage on a blackened and stippled ground involving, in the band at the neck-opening, three hounds pursuing a stag, in the bands at the arm-openings, grotesque and dolphin-headed scrolls, cornucopia and ribands, and in the medial band, the figure of St Judith above rectangular cartouches, oval shields and other devices. title: backplate (body armour) NOTES ----- type: history note value: The backplate may originally have come from the armoury of the Dukes of Brunswick at Schloss Blankenburg where similarly decorated pieces were formerly preserved, now transferred to the Marienburg near Hildesheim. It was presumably purchased from Fenton & Sons Ltd of 33 Cranbourn Street, Leicester Square, London WC2, whose label it bears, dated 16 January 1943. LICENSING --------- text license status: CC0 image license status: CC-BY-NC-SA OWNERSHIP --------- instutition: The Fitzwilliam Museum department: Applied Arts creditline: Given by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum STABLE URL ---------- url: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/18603 TECHNIQUES ---------- formed of a single plate of great weight, slightly shaped to the shoulder blades; hammered, shaped, riveted, decorated with finely etched ornament in bands on blackened and stippled ground hammered TECHNIQUES ---------- formed CATEGORIES ------ category: armour DATING ------ creation date: 1550 - 1550 creation date earliest: 1550 creation date latest: 1550 culture: 16th Century, Mid# CREATORS -------- maker: Unknown DIMENSIONS ---------- dimension: Depth units: cm value: 8.0 dimension: Height units: cm value: 38.5 dimension: Weight units: kg value: 5.07 dimension: Width units: cm value: 40.0 CITATIONS -------- Exhibition of Arms, Armour and Militaria lent by H.R.H. The Duke of Brunswick Waffen und Kostümkunde ---