Carried in one hand and used together with a sword for personal defense, this buckler is one of a distinctive group made near the English-Welsh border town of Wrexham. The construction melds the decorative and the functional by using brass-capped iron rivets to attach concentric steel rings to a central domed boss over a wood and leather backing. The result is both eye and sword catching.
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Dimensions:Diam. 14 1/4 in. (36.2 cm); Wt. 5 lb. (2.27 kg)
Classification:Shields
Credit Line:Gift of Alberta M. Welch, in memory of Alexander McMillan Welch, 1945
Object Number:45.160.1
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Loan Exhibition of European Arms and Armor," August 3–September 27, 1931, no. 104.
Jamestown. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. "The Arms and Armor of the Seventeenth Century," May 1, 2000–October 31, 2000.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Defensive Display: Shields from The Met Collection," May 12, 2025–Ongoing.
Dillon Viscount Dillon. Illustrated guide to the armouries, Tower of London. London: H.M.S.O., p. 96, v. 16, pl. 25.
Ffoulkes, Charles J. European arms and armor in the University of Oxford. Oxford: Methuen, 1912. no. 162, pl. XVII.
Dean, Bashford. The Collection of Arms and Armor of Rutherford Stuyvesant, 1843–1909. New York: privately printed, 1914. no. 42.
Robiquet, Jacques. Catalogue des armes & armures de souverains français & étrangers. Paris: Frazier-Soye, 1916. p. 75, no. 55, pl. XIX.
Laking, Guy Francis, and Charles Alexander Cosson. A Record of European Armour and Arms Through Seven Centuries, edited by Francis Henry Cripps-Day. Vol. II. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1920. p. 345, fig. 616.
Christie, Manson & Woods. Catalogue of a Collection of Arms and Armour: The Property of Sir Achibald Lamb. London: Christie, Manson & Woods, May 15, 1922. p. 3, lot no. 2.
Grancsay, Stephen V., Thomas T. Hopes, George C. Stone, and Fred G. Blakeslee. [Boxed Set Containing "Brief Essays on Armor and Arms," Nos. 1–4 and a Series of 17 Pamphlets of Photographs of Arms and Armor in Members' Collections, Nos. 1–85]. New York: Armor and Arms Club, 1925. Photograph nos 51-55.
Christie, Manson & Woods. Choice Collection of Arms and Armour. London: Christie, Manson & Woods, May 5, 1931. no. 66.
Grancsay, Stephen V. Loan Exhibition of European Arms and Armor: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, August 3 to September 27, 1931. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1931. cat. no. 104.
Blair, Claude, and Ifor Edwards. "Welsh Bucklers." The Antiquaries Journal 62 pp. 74-115.
Lavin, James D., Thomas Davidson, and Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Arms & Armor of 17th–century Virginia. Jamestown: Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, 2000.
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