3-053-690 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"A Knight Arming", by Sir John Gilbert; in the exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1873. This drawing is one of the minor, but not the least characteristic, of the works which Sir John Gilbert, A.R.A., has contributed to the current exhibition of the Water-Colour Society, of which he is President. Sir John is never more at home than in depicting the mediaeval warrior in his harness of mail or plate. For the handsome and stalwart figure before us he has chosen the period when plate armour had almost entirely superseded chain-mail. The young page is buckling on the last vestige of what once (as the hauberk) was a complete body-covering of chain-mail. This office being performed, the knight has only to replace his barret-cap with the helmet and to draw on his gauntlets to be armed cap-à-pie. Is it for friendly tourney or combat à outrance - is it against Christian foe or infidel paynim - that the good knight is arming? The question is not easy to determine: the scarf round the knight's left arm was, however, doubtless given by fair hands, and as a lady's champion the knight is about to enter the lists, or maybe to engage in more serious contest'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.