Backplate

Artistdecorative motives attributed to Étienne Delaune (German, about 1519–1583)

Culture French

Date1580s, modified early 1600s

Mediumsteel with traces of gilding and leather

Dimensions38 × 36 × 18 cm (14 15/16 × 14 3/16 × 7 1/16 in.), 3 lb, 13 oz (weight)

ClassificationsArms and Armor

Credit LineThe John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection

Terms

Object number2014.70.2

DescriptionThe backplate has been modified in a similar manner as breastplate. It has been shortened below, and apparently above as well as the turn of the neck is poorly formed and lacks the decorative border found on the breastplate. At the sides and shoulders are fitted decorative gilded oblong buckles. These are associations, and beneath them are visible other vacant locator holes.

Riveted to the straight-cut basal edge is a narrow, cusped flange with turned edge. This is embossed with putti, groups of vegetation and isolated snails and birds. The terminals of this lame have been extended with short pieces of mismatched, embossed metal probably from the removed sections of the cuirass. The flange has been reworked, as indicated by a slit in the center that now allows the two halves to overlap.

Traces of lining-leathers are riveted all around the edge.

The backplate is embossed with a central motif of Venus and Mars seated facing one another, with a figure of Cupid at Venus's knee. Above them is a triangular grouping of Eros-like putti in flight, armed with quiver, bow and arrow. The spaces around both groups are filled with cornucopiae, foliage and birds bearing drapery in their beaks. The central motives are themselves framed by strapwork which eminates from a grotesque mask on the lower half, and extending upwards in an addorsed crescentic pattern with voluted terminals. To either side of the framed area is a Manneristic display of putti, cornucopiae and seated on dolphins, a pair of classically-cuirassed winged caryatids, that on the left with a lion-featured head. Below the grotesque mask is a pair of addorsed females each bearing a cornucopia in one hand (perhaps Fortune?); the lower part of these figures is lost, as the backplate is cut at this point.
ProvenancePrince Peter Soltykoff (Paris) Hollingworth Magniac (London) Duveen Brothers (NY) Clarence H. Mackay (Roslyn, L.I.). Purchased by the Armory on 27 July 1939 from Christie, Manson and Woods (London) at the Clarence Mackay sale, lot 58. Collection transfer from Higgins Armory, January 2014.

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