Summary

Gun Shield   (  )
Artist	Giovanbattista of Ravenna Anonymous (England)Unknown author
Title	Gun Shield
Description	English: This is a rare, experimental combination of body armor (shield) and a weapon (matchlock gun). The gunsmith Giovanni Battista of Ravenna proposed this gun shield to King Henry VIII of England in 1544. Interested in technology, the king had 100 made for his bodyguards. As a firearm, it was too heavy to aim unless rested on a support and was rejected for use. However, in the late 1600s, 66 were still kept in the royal armory, perhaps as curiosities. Technological hybrids were appreciated as attempts to do two things at once. Lock mechanisms for firing guns were made by smiths who made locks for doors or chests. A door lock by Henry VIII's master locksmith is in the Collector's Study.
Date	between 1545 and 1550 date QS:P571,+1550-00-00T00:00:00Z/7,P1319,+1545-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1326,+1550-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Medium	steel, iron, wood, leather, fabric
Dimensions	30.1 × 46.5 cm (11.8 × 18.3 in) (d. x diam.)
Collection	Walters Art Museum    Native name Walters Art Museum Location Baltimore, United States of America Coordinates 39° 17′ 48″ N, 76° 36′ 58″ W   Established 1934  Website thewalters.org Authority file : Q210081 VIAF: 128918374 ISNI: 000000040373611X ULAN: 500279110 LCCN: no00096900 GND: 16029354-6 WorldCat institution QS:P195,Q210081
Accession number	51.1414
Place of creation	England, United Kingdom
Object history	Armory at the Tower of London John Beardmore [date and mode of acquisition unknown] Beardmore Sale, London, 1921, lot 17 1981: given to Walters Art Museum [purchased through a fund donated by Joseph Kindig, Jr.'s three children]
Credit line	Gift in memory of Joe Kindig, Jr., by his children, 1981
Source	Walters Art Museum: Home page  Info about artwork
Permission (Reusing this file)	This work is free and may be used by anyone for any purpose. If you wish to use this content, you do not need to request permission as long as you follow any licensing requirements mentioned on this page. The Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication under the terms mentioned on this page. This correspondence has been reviewed by a Volunteer Response Team (VRT) member and stored in our permission archive. The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #2012021710000834. If you have questions about the archived correspondence, please use the VRT noticeboard. Ticket link: https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketNumber=2012021710000834 Find other files from the same ticket:

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This file was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the Walters Art Museum as part of a cooperation project. All artworks in the photographs are in public domain due to age. The photographs of two-dimensional objects are also in the public domain. Photographs of three-dimensional objects and all descriptions have been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License. In the case of the text descriptions, copyright restrictions only apply to longer descriptions which cross the threshold of originality. العربيَّة | English | français | italiano | македонски | русский | sicilianu | +/−

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