Skilled realist painters use their brushes to guide us to the heavens and virtuous conduct. They can also take us through myriad human experiences, including bringing home the harsh realities of battle. British painter Frank Craig did just that in “The Maid,” where he rendered Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, faithfully leading the French cavalry into battle.
Craig (1874–1918) used the red lances to direct the viewer’s gaze to Joan and then to the enemy archers in the distance. Joan is fierce yet poised, riding headlong into enemy lines with her troops. Her white surcoat covers her armor, as she wields a huge white flag of the Virgin Mary, their ultimate protector.
Craig brought the fast-paced battle to life: We can almost hear the battle cries, the stampede of horses’ hooves, and the foot soldiers charging, as the lance-carrying cavalry surge forward into arrow fire, ready to draw enemy blood. There’s action at every turn as cavalry dodge arrows, and some succumb.
Visitors to the Palace of Versailles can see Craig’s painting and other equestrian art in the “Horse in Majesty—At the Heart of a Civilisation” exhibition. They can also see splendid and sometimes rare equestrian and cavalry armor—from the 1500s to 1800s—among the over 300 exhibition works.
Cavalry Art
Craig’s French contemporaries John Lewis Brown (1829–90) and Aimé Morot (1850–1913) depicted two recent battles in the early stages of the Franco-Prussian war on Aug. 16, 1870.
Brown rendered a French soldier on horseback in the Battle of Reichshoffen in Wœrth, northeast France. He has just sounded his bugle. Pulling himself back in his saddle and holding the instrument high, he summons the troops to charge ahead. His startled horse jumps into action, fast.
Brown specialized in painting genre, hunting, and military scenes including the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
Morot painted a thunderous cavalry charge in the Battle of Rezonville, near the village of Mars-la-Tour in northeast France. Cavalrymen in the foreground skillfully clash swords, contorting their bodies to either attack their enemy or defend themselves. One soldier and his horse take a tumble, destined to be trampled by the fast-advancing troops in the background.
Equestrian Armor
The first-known animal armor appeared around 2600 B.C. to 2500 B.C., when onagers (wild donkeys) wore protective chest plates while pulling battle carts in the city of Ur, Mesopotamia (now known as Iraq).
European horse armor first appeared in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C.From the 1500s to 1800s, European armorers not only tailored steel suits for the cavalrymen, foot soldiers, and tournament contestants, but they also created lavish armor as diplomatic gifts and for special occasions such as parades and ceremonies.
“Because of its great expense, armour was always a status symbol, like jewellery; and in parade armour it became the most extensive jewellery ever designed, covering its wearer literally from top to toe,” wrote The Metropolitan Museum of Art former curator Helmut Nickel in “Arms and Armour Through the Ages.”
An armorer protected the warhorse’s head with a “shaffron,” its neck with a “crinet,” its chest with a “peytral,” its sides with “flanchards,” and its rump with a “crupper.”Steel Sculpture
“The manufacture of armour is actually sculpture in steel, and the armourers often tried to prove their skill by creating extravagant designs,” Nickel wrote.
“Plate armour was designed to present a glancing surface to the point of a weapon,” he explained. So as not to reduce the depth of the plate or impair its glancing surface, armorers etched decorative details onto plate armor. Statement suits of armor didn’t have the same decorative restraints, so armorers embossed entire surfaces with elaborate designs.
Two late-Gothic shaffrons, on loan from The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, attributed to Milanese armorer Romain des Ursins, feature in the exhibition. The then Lyon-based armorer created a German-style crinet and shaffron. The crinet consists of a series of steel plates (called “lames”) that pivot on rivets, protecting the horse’s neck without restricting its movements. He sculpted a simple, pointed shaffron with ridges that mold to the horse’s face. Nineteenth-century additions include the shaffron’s ear and eye guards and the crinet’s mail fringe and lame that protected the mane.
Around the same time, Ursins created a fierce dragon–head shaffron for the French court. The “heroic”-style dragon harks back to legends and literature. Some 40 years later, court armorers embellished the shaffron for Dauphin Henry II of France (1519–59). Finely finished gold-damascened dolphins, fleur-de-lis, and the letter “H” made the refurbished shaffron fit for the steed of the future king.
In the late 16th century, an unknown French armorer created a heroic-style ceremonial helmet, chasing, engraving, and damascening the entire helmet with a writhing mass of men on warhorses locked in battle. Some riders and horses gallop hard toward the enemy, while others take their last battle breath. A series of holes at the bottom of the helmet show where it would have been riveted or laced with leather to the body armor.
German armorer Anton Peffenhauser (1525–1603) worked in Augsburg, Germany, an area famed for its armor; in the second half of the 16th century, he was the town’s leading armorer. His immense skill can be seen in the striking knight’s suit and barding owned by the Dresden State Art Collections, Germany. Peffenhauser encased the knight in a steel suit that seamlessly links to the barding. The peytral, flanchards, and crupper, sweep down the horse’s chest, sides, and rump, respectively, like fabric rather than steel. Plate metal even covers the reins so they couldn’t be cut in battle. And Peffenhauser etched every surface with flourishes of nature.
Horses often wore cloth covers called “caparisons” under their armor that covered the horse from head to tail. Confusingly, caparisons could also be called barding such as the case of the colorful 16th-century and 17th-century barding seen in Nuremberg tournament and parade albums. Among these vivid illustrations are bachelor jousts that show the now legendary pageantry of the era. Many illustrations detail the knights’ names, their coats of arms, and comical aspects of the knights’ characters.
The exhibition pays tribute to the horse in human civilization. Viewing the exhibition’s historic battle art and armor gives us a deeper appreciation of the exquisite skills of armorers who kept soldiers protected. It also gives us a greater appreciation of just how hard our ancestors fought.
