Study of Antique Armor

Inscriptions

Not signed.

Label

Against an undefined background, ancient armor and objects are piled together. At the front is a vase with grotesque designs, standing before a group of shields and a sheepskin. To the right is a helmet and a cuirass (upper body armor) attached to pteruges (defensive strips attached at the waist). A sheathed sword lies on the ground. The European interest in antiquity continued throughout the eighteenth century, a period during which excavations uncovered greater evidence of Greek and Roman life. Ancient soldiers in particular were understood as models of valor, their deeds chronicled in epics and tragedies. The empty armor in this drawing suggests what happens in the aftermath of such accomplishments: only the disembodied form of the soldier is left behind.

From the 2023 exhibition Recording War: Images of Violence 1500 – 1900, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming

Course History

Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Anthropology, Charis Ford Morrison Boke 1, Summer 2023

Studio Art 27.01/28.01/74.01, Printmaking I/II/III, Josh Dannin, Summer 2024

Exhibition History

Antiquity in Rome from the Renaissance to the Age of Enlightenment: Selections from Dartmouth's Collections, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 7-September 9, 2001.

Master Drawings from the College Collection, Beaumont-May Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 1-October 8, 1978.

Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 23-December 9, 2023.

Rococo to Modernism: European Drawings and Watercolors from the Permanent Collection and Dartmouth's Alumni, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 30-May 30, 2004.

Publication History

T. Barton Thurber and Adrian W.B. Randolph, Antiquity in Rome from the Renaissance to the Age of Enlightenment: Selections from Dartmouth's Collections, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2001, listed p.72.

Provenance

Collected by Hersey Egginton (1875-1951); bequeathed to his wife, Mary E. (Benner) Egginton (1875-1962), Garden City, New York, 1951; given to present collection, 1954.

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