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Fig. 1065. Part of a series of suits (all one set)
German work, dated 1544. It is known as the Mühlberg armour. Royal Armoury, Madrid
them with the suit we are now about to discuss. Though this remarkable suit is still of very symmetrical shape, its whole construction shows a greater robustness in its width; the enclosing plates for the limbs are likewise large in circumference. Its date—1544—appears in two small circles, engraved and placed back to back on the right arm guard. The decoration upon nearly all the plates, none of which bears an armourer's mark, consists in narrow slightly recessed bands, etched and gilt, each band having a flanking ornament made up of a series of petal-shaped panels, issuing at right angles from the main band. The ground colour of the harness is white or brightened steel. All the breast-*plates of this very full suit display the image of the Virgin, and on the backplate that of St. Barbara. This suit, which shows all the characteristics of the work of either Kolman of Augsburg or of Wolf of Landshut, is most closely identified with the Emperor; for famous artists and sculptors have left to posterity portraits and statues of the Emperor in which he is seen wearing it. Of these none is more famous than Titian's splendid portrait painted at Augsburg in 1548, which shows the Emperor on horseback at the battle of Mühlberg, 1547 (Fig. 1066), a circumstance that has given to the suit its name. So accurate are the details given in this portrait, that by its aid the late Count de Valencia was able, with little
