The latest exhibition at the Wallace Collection, small but beautifully formed, has a long and imposing title: The Noble Art of the Sword: Fashion and Fencing in Renaissance Europe.
For someone like me, a pacifist peasant with a profound antipathy towards arms and armour, it would seem to hold little or no appeal. It is, however, irresistibly appealing.
The exhibition is highly theatrical. It explores the development of the rapier between 1520 and 1630, not just as a light and elegant weapon, but also as a fashion accessory.
At the time, the ownership of a rapier worn in public indicated a person’s status and wealth; the equivalent today of an expensive Rolex watch or having the latest piece of technological wizardry, though decidedly more deadly. Fashion went hand in hand with a culture of violence; creative and artistic genius was the companion of murder.
We should have realised this all along. The literature of Tudor and Stuart Britain, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Massinger, Jonson and others is crammed with evidence.
The love story of Romeo and Juliet takes place against a background of aristocratic lads stabbing each other in public. As British Museum director Neil MacGregor has reminded us in Shakespeare’s Restless World series on Radio 4, the play is a forerunner “not so much of Love Story, but of A Clockwork Orange”.
The value of swords is well illustrated in the final act of Hamlet when we learn that Claudius has wagered “six French rapiers and poniards” against the six Barbary horses of Laertes.
And at the end of The Tempest, Prospero’s final demand of Ariel is: “Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell.” By his costume and sword he will be recognised as the true Duke of Milan.
The playwrights and actors themselves were not free of trouble. Marlowe was killed in a brawl; Shakespeare was arraigned for fighting outside the Swan Theatre; Gabriel Spencer of the King’s Men slew a man in a brawl in 1596. Two years later he was himself killed in a duel by Ben Jonson.
The artefacts that prove such words have been skilfully selected by the ebullient curator of arms and armour at the Wallace Collection, Toby Capwell, described with conspicuous modesty in the museum’s press release as “martial artist, horseman... the world’s only jousting curator”.
Most of the objects have come from the Wallace Collection itself, together with loans from the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Armouries, Glasgow Museums and from important museum collections in Vienna and Dresden.
Cut and thrust
The rapier of the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, from the mid-16th century, has been loaned from a museum in Vienna, and has never been seen in the UK before.
The hilt is modelled in solid gold and shines with multicoloured enamel ornamentation. The sword can be disassembled for storage in a case like a piece of jewellery, but it is more than beautiful.
The rapier’s grip may be wrapped in fine gold wire but it is still practical and the Milanese blade is of the very best fighting quality.
Similarly seductive is a loan from Dresden, a rapier and parrying dagger constructed of solid silver without any gilding, amascening, enamelling or jewels.
The decorative scheme of undulating engraved lines suggests water, as do the maritime gods, cockleshells and dolphins. The whole effect, to my eyes, is the most seductive of all the exhibits – a chilling amalgam of beauty and brutality.
Into my mind came the words in Macbeth: “Here lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood.”
The exhibition makes clear the sword does not exist in isolation: mounts, fittings, buckles, spurs, buttons and costume must all coordinate to make the perfect gentleman.
The rapier, dagger and scabbard of Christian II, Elector of Saxony, are shown together with a matching doublet and breeches, made from the finest Italian silk. This parade costume has not been displayed in Dresden since 1942. It is a considerable coup for London that it has come out of storage.
Such dedicated followers of fashion were not, however, confined to mainland Europe. An early portrait of Robert Dudley, favourite of Elizabeth I, shows him dressed in a silk costume decorated with clusters of pearls.
His right hand rests on a military helmet, his left plays with the acanthus-decorated hilt of an Italian rapier. Dress and demeanour proclaim him as a sophisticate, a courtier and a soldier.
The pressures of fashionable life at court are further exemplified by the experience of Arthur Throckmorton. He bought a velvet suit and silver rapier for his appearance before the Virgin Queen and spent most of the rest of his life paying interest on the money he borrowed. Then, as now, ambition was costly.
Tie-in activities
Men of wealth and those of aspiration employed master draughtsmen, such as Hans Holbein and Albrecht Dürer, to design hilts. Dürer also illustrated fight manuals that extolled swordfighting as an artform and a science.
Manuals from the Howard de Walden Library reveal a balletic attention to skill, precise movements and techniques. These are complemented by 16th-century training weapons, the precursors of modern fencing.
The exhibition runs until 16 September and, noting that fencing was one of the nine events in the first modern Olympics of 1896, covers the period of the London Olympics.
There are five Swordplay Saturdays, lunchtime talks by curators, a collaborative production with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama of Montverdi’s swordfight with music, and two study days. A conservation project, Making the Renaissance Sword, runs concurrently with the exhibition.
This all adds up to a considerable achievement. It is greatly to the credit of the curatorial team that the artefacts and documents have come together in such a coherent way. The standard of display and labelling is excellent and the exemplary catalogue blends scholarship with artistry.
The exhibition will last one summer and will not be seen elsewhere. Though other museums have been generous with loans, the statutes of the Wallace Collection do not allow any of its collections to leave Hertford House.
If you, like Mercutio, yearn for the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hai, then make your way to London.
Peter Lewis is a writer and a past director of Beamish
For someone like me, a pacifist peasant with a profound antipathy towards arms and armour, it would seem to hold little or no appeal. It is, however, irresistibly appealing.
The exhibition is highly theatrical. It explores the development of the rapier between 1520 and 1630, not just as a light and elegant weapon, but also as a fashion accessory.
At the time, the ownership of a rapier worn in public indicated a person’s status and wealth; the equivalent today of an expensive Rolex watch or having the latest piece of technological wizardry, though decidedly more deadly. Fashion went hand in hand with a culture of violence; creative and artistic genius was the companion of murder.
We should have realised this all along. The literature of Tudor and Stuart Britain, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Massinger, Jonson and others is crammed with evidence.
The love story of Romeo and Juliet takes place against a background of aristocratic lads stabbing each other in public. As British Museum director Neil MacGregor has reminded us in Shakespeare’s Restless World series on Radio 4, the play is a forerunner “not so much of Love Story, but of A Clockwork Orange”.
The value of swords is well illustrated in the final act of Hamlet when we learn that Claudius has wagered “six French rapiers and poniards” against the six Barbary horses of Laertes.
And at the end of The Tempest, Prospero’s final demand of Ariel is: “Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell.” By his costume and sword he will be recognised as the true Duke of Milan.
The playwrights and actors themselves were not free of trouble. Marlowe was killed in a brawl; Shakespeare was arraigned for fighting outside the Swan Theatre; Gabriel Spencer of the King’s Men slew a man in a brawl in 1596. Two years later he was himself killed in a duel by Ben Jonson.
The artefacts that prove such words have been skilfully selected by the ebullient curator of arms and armour at the Wallace Collection, Toby Capwell, described with conspicuous modesty in the museum’s press release as “martial artist, horseman... the world’s only jousting curator”.
Most of the objects have come from the Wallace Collection itself, together with loans from the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Armouries, Glasgow Museums and from important museum collections in Vienna and Dresden.
Cut and thrust
The rapier of the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, from the mid-16th century, has been loaned from a museum in Vienna, and has never been seen in the UK before.
The hilt is modelled in solid gold and shines with multicoloured enamel ornamentation. The sword can be disassembled for storage in a case like a piece of jewellery, but it is more than beautiful.
The rapier’s grip may be wrapped in fine gold wire but it is still practical and the Milanese blade is of the very best fighting quality.
Similarly seductive is a loan from Dresden, a rapier and parrying dagger constructed of solid silver without any gilding, amascening, enamelling or jewels.
The decorative scheme of undulating engraved lines suggests water, as do the maritime gods, cockleshells and dolphins. The whole effect, to my eyes, is the most seductive of all the exhibits – a chilling amalgam of beauty and brutality.
Into my mind came the words in Macbeth: “Here lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood.”
The exhibition makes clear the sword does not exist in isolation: mounts, fittings, buckles, spurs, buttons and costume must all coordinate to make the perfect gentleman.
The rapier, dagger and scabbard of Christian II, Elector of Saxony, are shown together with a matching doublet and breeches, made from the finest Italian silk. This parade costume has not been displayed in Dresden since 1942. It is a considerable coup for London that it has come out of storage.
Such dedicated followers of fashion were not, however, confined to mainland Europe. An early portrait of Robert Dudley, favourite of Elizabeth I, shows him dressed in a silk costume decorated with clusters of pearls.
His right hand rests on a military helmet, his left plays with the acanthus-decorated hilt of an Italian rapier. Dress and demeanour proclaim him as a sophisticate, a courtier and a soldier.
The pressures of fashionable life at court are further exemplified by the experience of Arthur Throckmorton. He bought a velvet suit and silver rapier for his appearance before the Virgin Queen and spent most of the rest of his life paying interest on the money he borrowed. Then, as now, ambition was costly.
Tie-in activities
Men of wealth and those of aspiration employed master draughtsmen, such as Hans Holbein and Albrecht Dürer, to design hilts. Dürer also illustrated fight manuals that extolled swordfighting as an artform and a science.
Manuals from the Howard de Walden Library reveal a balletic attention to skill, precise movements and techniques. These are complemented by 16th-century training weapons, the precursors of modern fencing.
The exhibition runs until 16 September and, noting that fencing was one of the nine events in the first modern Olympics of 1896, covers the period of the London Olympics.
There are five Swordplay Saturdays, lunchtime talks by curators, a collaborative production with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama of Montverdi’s swordfight with music, and two study days. A conservation project, Making the Renaissance Sword, runs concurrently with the exhibition.
This all adds up to a considerable achievement. It is greatly to the credit of the curatorial team that the artefacts and documents have come together in such a coherent way. The standard of display and labelling is excellent and the exemplary catalogue blends scholarship with artistry.
The exhibition will last one summer and will not be seen elsewhere. Though other museums have been generous with loans, the statutes of the Wallace Collection do not allow any of its collections to leave Hertford House.
If you, like Mercutio, yearn for the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hai, then make your way to London.
Peter Lewis is a writer and a past director of Beamish
Project data
- Cost undisclosed
- Main funder Wallace Collection
- Curator Toby Capwell
- Exhibition design John Ronayne
- Joinery TMP
- Exhibition ends 16 September
