Cuirass (Breastplate and Backplate) in the Late Gothic Style

Sculpted with sleek rippled surfaces and decorative cut edges, this cuirass typifies late gothic German armor. A rare survival, it is fabled to have come out of a church in the Austrian Tyrol at the turn of the 20th century. It may have adorned a shrine figure of Saint George or hung over a noble’s tomb.

The heavily pitted exterior attests to centuries of neglect, and a redblistered area of the interior is evidence it was in a fire. The right side of the breastplate below the waist was carefully restored in London around 1917.