Left Greave and Sabaton

Artist Franz Großschedel , and/or (Landshut, Southern Germany, 1555 – 1580)

Artist Wolfgang Großschedel (Landshut, Southern Germany, 1517 – 1562)

Date1560–1570

Mediumsteel and brass with modern leather and cordage

Dimensions48 × 10 × 27 cm (18 7/8 × 3 15/16 × 10 5/8 in.), 3 lb 8 oz (weight)

ClassificationsArms and Armor

Markings(left greave) pair of nicks on sabaton center plate and four below, frontplate of greaves at outer side above lower hinge.

Credit LineThe John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection

Terms

Object number2014.1139.12

Description**Left greave with sabaton. Both greaves are elegant & well-formed to lower legs. Greave plates are shaped to calf, with medial ridge on each of 2 hinged halves, & are laminated at ankles. There are three anterior and four posterior laminations here, overlapping upward. Each lame is narrow and curved, with straight ends at the internally lobated brass rivets. These are sliding types, and the lames are further articulated on a central pair of leathers. The rear mainplate of the greave is slightly depressed at the inwardly turned and roped top edge, and rises at the basal end in a high arch, similarly finished, for the spur. The front and rear halves are hinged on the outer face: there is a brass, lobated hinge just above the ankle laminations, and there are concealed hinges, offset by file-marks, at the base of the foot and at about two-thirds height of the greave. Short, pierced studs and pivot-hooks secure the defenses closed at the top and bottom of the inner face.

Riveted to the leading edge of the deep, arched foreplate at the ankles are sabatons of ten lames each, including toe-cap. There are four arched medially-ridged lames each above and below a center lame towards which they overlap. The lames are squared at the hollow-flanged and roped ends, and riveted to one another by brass rivets in internally lobated mounts. The toe-cap is narrow, and bluntly pointed, with file roping along its basal edge. The cap has a curved lip beneath the ends of the toes. Riveted to this is a deep leather strip, largely preserved intact on the right defense.

All lames of the defenses have a small, V-shaped nick in the medial edge. Etched bands en suite extend down the medial ridge, side edges of the frontplate, and around the basal edge of sabaton lames and spur-slot.

The basic form of the legs is paralleled in several examples, both with and without laminated ankles. See those of A.474b, .474 (no suffix), .1044, .1179, and .535, all at Vienna, and all ca. 1560 or later. Those of G.64 at Paris, and the Krakow legs are similar, but with bluntly squared-off sabatons. See Landshuter Plattnerkunst, fig. 8, plts 41, 42, 49, 56, 60. also Gamber, fig. 2.
ProvenanceEx-collection the duc de Noailles (France) the dealer Foury (Paris) Clarence H. Mackay (Roslyn, L.I.) Purchased by the Armory from the estate of Clarence H. Mackay, through Jacques Seligmann & Co. (New York City) on 1 April 1940, their number A-5/115. Collection transfer from Higgins Armory, Janaury 2014.

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