Backplate (armour)
Category
Arms and armour
Date
1650
Materials
Metal
Measurements
41 cm (H)35 cm (W)
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Chastleton House, Oxfordshire
NT 1429701
Summary
HARQUEBUSIER'S BACKPLATE; With a raised neck and a narrow flange at the waist. The main edges have plain inward turns. At either shoulder is the first plate and leather of a replacement shoulder strap, the edge being broken off where the rivet holes for the original attachment were. The ends of the leather waist straps are attached by two rivets at either side of the waist.Stamped at the neck with an indistinct mark, probably the crowned IR mark of the Tower arsenal during the reign of James II.
Provenance
At first sight, the group of arms and armour from Chastleton House gives the apearance of a surviving seventeenth century armoury. Internal evidence, however, indicates that much if not all of it was obtained on the armour market in the early nineteenth century. This is quite usual, for it was the Gothic revival in England that sparked the resurgence of interest in acquiring armour for country house decoration, and often even led to houses that had once had collections of armour, and had disposed of them in the eighteenth century when they were unfashionable, reacquiring them and pretending they were the original collection.