Arms and Armour
The astounding collection of arms and armour in the Conflict and Consequence gallery is thanks, for the most part, to a generous bequest from Robert Lyons Scott, the chairman of a shipbuilding company who died in 1939.
He was a man utterly fascinated by weaponry, an interest that started as a boy when he purchased a flintlock for a few pennies.
Key objects in the armour section are the garniture of Sir William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, made at the Royal Armouries in Greenwich around 1557, and the only example of its type to survive.
The Milanese field armour in the Italian Art gallery, made about 1440, is probably the earliest near-complete plate armour in the world. Scott purchased this in 1938 from the eccentric American newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst.
A little known fact about the range of fighting implements from swords, daggers, and maces to crossbows, pistols and long guns, is that Scott preferred to collect the equipment of real fighting men, everyday weapons rather than highly decorated artworks, display pieces or costume items. Many of the swords he collected may very well have drawn blood, and some of the pieces of armour certainly bear the scars of battle.
Kelvingrove also possesses some very fine examples of nineteenth-century Japanese armour, which have struck a chord with many visitors because of their striking combination of formality and flamboyance.
Still on the armour theme, the nearby Dutch Art gallery hosts what is probably one of Kelvingrove’s most famous paintings – ‘A Man in Armour’, painted by Rembrandt in 1655.
Extract from ‘Kelvingrove’ by Muriel Gray by kind permission of Glasgow Museums