Armourer Greats: Anton Peffenhauser
An Article by Freiherr Alexander Von Reitzenstein
The Augsburg armourer Anton Peffenhauser was one of the four or five most outstanding practitioners of his art in the entire sixteenth century. He stayed in the limelight for more than fifty years, from 1545 to 1603, and it is really surprising how many of his surviving works—more than those of any of his contemporaries—can be attributed to their maker with certainty, or at least with a very high degree of probability.
Fig. 1—Part of an engraving executed about 1600 showing Master Anton Peffenhauser.
(Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett)
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In the second half of the sixteenth century, the art of the armourer lost much of its vigor, and celebrated masters like Desiderius Helmschmied and Matthäus Frauenpreis could not long struggle against the decline; only Anton Peffenhauser was not swept along—on the contrary, his position grew stronger, probably more because of his dealings in the foreign trade, i.e. export business, than in the home market. But everywhere, also of course at home, his works remained in high esteem until his death, and for a long time after.
Fig. 2—Embossed armour of King Sebastian of Portugal, Circa 1550.
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The Correr Museum in Venice possesses an etched and figured iron plate, once the lower part of an epitaph on a tomb in an Augsburg church (Fig. 1). On it are shown "Master Anthonius Peffenhauser," his two wives and his fourteen children. Next to him is his coat of arms, the figure of which—a triquet, i.e. three legs revolving about a common center, at which they join—was also his mark as armourer. In fact, this device definitively identifies his work, and in the absence of it an attribution would have to be supported by documentary evidence.
Peffenhauser's stylistic range varies from lush ornamentation to extreme simplicity. One of the most remarkable bas-relief armours known, believed to have been property of King Sebastian of Portugal (1554-78, killed in Morocco at the Battle of Alcazarquivir), now in the Could not connect to link database |
