Giorgio ghisi, mantova, scudo da parata, 1554, 01

The Ghisi Shield is a piece of

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

parade armour Plate armour is a historical type of personal body armour made from bronze, iron, or steel plates, culminating in the iconic suit of armour entirely encasing the wearer. Full plate steel armour developed in Europe during the Late Middle Ages, ...

made by the Italian goldsmith and engraver

Giorgio Ghisi Giorgio Ghisi (1520 — 15 December 1582) was an Italian engraver from Mantua who also worked in Antwerp and in France. He made both prints and damascened metalwork, although only two surviving examples of the latter are known. Life He was ...

, signed and dated 1554. It is part of the

Waddesdon Bequest In 1898, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild bequeathed to the British Museum as the Waddesdon Bequest the contents from his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. This consisted of a wide-ranging collection of almost 300 ''objets d'art et de vertu ...

, held by the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in London since 1898. The shield is made from a single plate of hammered steel, with its rim turned over a wire. The decoration on the outer face is damascened in gold and partially plated with silver. It is in diameter, deep, and weighs . An inscription on the front of the shield reads, "GEORGIVS DE GHISYS MNTVANZ FA M.D.LIIII". Ghisi was an artist, mainly a printmaker, from

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...

, but he was in the Netherlands from about 1550 to about 1555, and the shield was probably made in Antwerp, then under the rule of the Habsburgs. It is one of only two surviving pieces of damascened metalwork known to have been made by Ghisi. (The other item is a damaged sword hilt, dated 1570, and now in the

Hungarian National Museum The Hungarian National Museum ( hu, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum) was founded in 1802 and is the national museum for the history, art, and archaeology of Hungary, including areas not within Hungary's modern borders, such as Transylvania; it is not to ...

in Budapest.) The intricately decorated shield, damascened with gold and silver, was intended for display, not for use in battle. It is embossed with repoussé and chased work in

high relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

, with a framed central circular scene of battling horseman, surrounded by four

strapwork In the history of art and design, strapwork is the use of stylised representations in ornament of ribbon-like forms. These may loosely imitate leather straps, parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings, and often interwoven in ...

cartouches containing

allegorical As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...

female figures (

Victory The term victory (from Latin ''victoria'') originally applied to warfare, and denotes success achieved in personal combat, after military operations in general or, by extension, in any competition. Success in a military campaign constitutes ...

, Fame, Fortitude, Prudence). The frames around the five main scenes themselves incorporate detailed images on a much smaller scale, taken from the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...

'' and ancient mythology, inlaid in gold. Further imagery of birds, foliage,

putti A putto (; plural putti ) is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and sometimes winged. Originally limited to profane passions in symbolism,Dempsey, Charles. ''Inventing the Renaissance Putto''. University of ...

satyr In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, σειληνός ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exa ...

s and other figures, fills the field between the frames. The shield may have been designed by a Netherlandish artist, not Ghisi himself: other shields made in the Netherlands in the late 16th century have survived with similar decoration, but none of them demonstrate the accomplished decorative skills of Ghisi. For example, an iron shield held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna has similar strapwork and embossed imagery with scenes of

Jason and the Golden Fleece Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He w ...

; and a similar gilded shield or rondache at the Hermitage in St Petersburg has four allegorical figures (Prudence, Fortitude, Fame,

Envy Envy is an emotion which occurs when a person lacks another's quality, skill, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. Aristotle defined envy as pain at the sight of another's good fortune, stirred b ...

) arranged in circular cartouches around a circular image of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

. The Ghisi Shield was sold for £1,000 at the Allègre sale in Paris in 1863, and then sold in the sale of the

Demidov Collection The Demidov collection was a collection of artworks gathered by the Russian industrialist Count Nikolay Nikitich Demidov and considerably expanded by his second son Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, 1st Prince of San Donato. It was mainly on show at ...

in Paris in 1870, shortly before the death of Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, 1st Prince of San Donato, for 1,600,000 francs (about £6,400). It was bought at the Demidov sale by Baron Anselm von Rothschild, and later inherited by his son Baron

Ferdinand de Rothschild Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (17 December 1839 – 17 December 1898), also known as Ferdinand James Anselm Freiherr von Rothschild, was a British Jewish banker, art collector and politician who was a member of the prominent Rothschild family of ...

, who left it to the

after his death in 1898 as part of the Waddesdon Bequest.

Gallery

File:Giorgio ghisi, mantova, scudo da parata, 1554, 02.JPG, Central scene File:Giorgio ghisi, mantova, scudo da parata, 1554, 05.JPG, Victory (top cartouche) File:Giorgio ghisi, mantova, scudo da parata, 1554, 06.JPG, Fame (bottom cartouche) File:Giorgio ghisi, mantova, scudo da parata, 1554, 03.JPG, Fortitude (left cartouche) File:Giorgio ghisi, mantova, scudo da parata, 1554, 04.JPG, Prudence (right cartouche) File:Rondache - MAP - I 74.JPG, Contemporaneous Dutch rondache, c.1560s

References

The Ghisi Shield
British Museum, London. Includes the entry from "Bury 2001": Bury, Michael, ''The Print in Italy: 1550-1620'', London, British Museum, 2001
The Ghisi Shield
British Museum
''The Engravings of Giorgio Ghisi''
Michal Lewis, R. E. Lewis, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985, , 9780870993978, p.17-18
Rondache
The Hermitage, St Petersburg
"Vliesschild"
("fleece-shield"), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna {{commonscat, Ghisi parade shield, British Museum 1554 works Individual shields Prehistory and Europe objects in the British Museum Artworks in metal Renaissance art 1554 in art