LOT 0303

Medieval Warrior's Iron Chain Mail Armour Shirt

CIRCA 15TH CENTURY A.D.

30 1/4 x 22 in. (9.93 kg, 87 x 56 cm).

A butted short-sleeved chainmail shirt made of thick oval rings assembled in the usual system of one-to-four; in an excellent state of preservation, with over 95% of the rings intact, very few broken or corroded, with no later additions.

Acquired on the German art market before 2000.
Private collection, South Germany.

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.13066-249665.

Cf. a similar mail shirt from Germany with butted rings from Nuremberg, 15th century, in the Metropoltan Museum of Art, New York, no.25.188.9; Gilliot, Weapons and Armours, Bayeux, 2008, pp.17-20, for similar coats of mail from Germany; Wood, E., Edge, D., Williams, A., ‘A note on the construction and metallurgy of mail armour exhibited in the Wallace Collection’ in Acta Militaria Medievalia, Tom IX, Kraków-Sanok, 2013, pp.203-228; Wijnhoven, M.A., Ringed battle shirts from the iron age, Roman Period and Early Middle Ages, Amsterdam, 2022.

In the German-manufactured ring mail armours, in the 15th century A.D., the rings protecting the breast were very thick, whereas the sleeved mail armours were thinner. Master armourers from Nuremberg were famous for this production across Europe.