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5 - The Thun Album as a Virtual Armory of Heroes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2024

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Summary

A two-sided drawing by Artist A in ink, gouache, and metallic silver wash depicts a garniture of sumptuous late gothic armor that is decorated with filigreed punchwork, its edges bound in gilt brass fleur-de-lys. The recto of the paper leaf (fig. 127) visualizes this armor encasing the body of a figure who wields a simple staff. The gilded knuckles of the man's right gauntlet project prominently as he grasps his weapon. He rests his left hand on his hip, and the gilt peak of the pointed couter that encapsulates his elbow accentuates the angle of his bent left arm. His elegant cuisses are embossed and chased with linear patterns, and his poleyns include double-lobed wings, edged in gilt binding, that protect the vulnerable outside of the joint. The figure's closed greaves completely encase his calves in sculpted steel, and his feet seem to terminate in extremely long, golden points. Flamboyant toe-caps of this type echoed the elongated shoes popular during the late fifteenth century, and would have been affixed to the sabatons using pins after the wearer was mounted. This drawing meticulously represents the pins, which appear as tiny circles on the tops of the figure's feet.

On the sheet's verso (fig. 128) Artist A disassembles the individual components of the same armor and spreads the empty steel defenses across the page. Two rows of gilt binding adorn the breastplate, and its volumetric form is saturated in steel blue gouache that is visible through the sheet above the shoulder of the armored figure on the recto. Next to the breastplate, a matching backplate completes the cuirass, or torso defense. The faulds that cascade downward from the waists of the breastplate and backplate have elegantly cusped and punched edges. The draftsman depicted the visored sallet beneath the breastplate. The bevor, which accompanied the sallet to protect the lower face and neck, appears to the helmet's right along with a spaulder, augmented by two different besagews. In the third row of armor components, a smooth, gilded reinforce alludes to the armor's potential deployment in a mounted tournament or joust, where this steel plate would protect the left shoulder from lance blows. The crisp, geometric form of the reinforce's haute piece – meant to protect the left side of the wearer's neck – anticipates the silhouettes of such defenses depicted by Burgkmair.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Thun-Hohenstein Album
Cultures of Remembrance in a Paper Armory
, pp. 245 - 302
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2023

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