Reiterharnisch (Küriss)

This harness is a highpoint of late Gothic German armour production. It perfectly reflects the contemporary aesthetic ideal in male fashion in steel north of the Alps. The wearer appears slim and light, and the armour’s surface is rhythmized with radial flutings. Some of the edges and lames are embellished with decorative gilt brass strips, while others are pierced to create geometric or lily-shaped patterns. The sabatons are elongated and tapered, reflecting contemporary elite shoe fashion.

The armour was produced around 1484 in the workshop of Lorenz Helmschmid at Augsburg. Lorenz was one of the greatest armourers of all time, founding a dynasty of master-craftsmen which, under his son Kolman and his grandson Desiderius, continued until the mid-sixteenth century to produce armour of the highest quality. From the 1470s onwards, the Helmschmid family worked mainly for the Habsburgs, from Emperor Frederick III to King Philip II of Spain.

This armour comes from the Armoury of Heroes assembled by Archduke Ferdinand II at Ambras Castle near Innsbruck. However, in the Armamentarium Heroicum, the catalogue of the collection published in 1601–03, it was listed and illustrated as armour made for Archduke Sigismund. Despite some doubts, this attribution was accepted until the early twenty-first century, when the young Emperor Maximilian I was finally identified as the probable original owner of this spectacular armour.

One reason for attributing it to Maximilian was his age at the time it was made. Only a slim, young man could have worn such a figure-hugging harness; at the time, Maximilian was 25 but Sigismund was almost 60. We also have no record of Sigismund ordering armour from Lorenz Helmschmid, unlike Maximilian who, starting around 1480, commissioned numerous works from him. In 1491, Maximilian installed Lorenz as his court armourer.