International studio (58.1916)

The Armourer s Shop at the Metropolitan


THE ARMOURER’S SHOP AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM—A WATER-COLOUR

BY S. J. ROWLAND

THE ARMOURER’S SHOP AT THE
METROPOLITAN
BY ROBERT MACAULEY
JACKSON
Thousands of those who yearly visit the halls
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
City are held fascinated by the mediaeval
armourer’s workshop which they find set up in a
panelled recess of carved oak in the main gallery
of the museum’s collection of arms and armour;
but to very few of these visitors is it known
that, tucked away in a corner of the huge build-
ing, is a complete practical armourer’s shop, or
that an artist armourer is working there whose
skill puts him on a level with some of the great
master-armourers of the middle ages.
This is M. Daniel Tachaux, a native of Blois,
who for a long time had an atelier in Paris and
who came to this country several years ago to
restrap—which is the technical term for re-
rivetting and readjusting the fastenings of
armour, a process which requires skill of no mean
order—to repair and, in very rare cases only, to
restore the pieces in this, America’s greatest
collection of arms and armour. His ancestors
have been for many generations makers of
weapons of defence and offence so that the

traditions of the craft are in his blood. He is
the only maker of armour in this country and
one of the very few now remaining in the world.
Here he sits day in and day out bringing forth the
beauty of some time-worn piece, some long-
tarnished helm, some valiant Damascus blade
worth a prince’s ransom. M. Tachaux is an
artist to the finger-tips and thoroughly under-
stands all the processes of ornamentation as well
as the forging of metal. His work is so skilfully
done that the portions of armour which he has
restored—be they even so small as the scale of a
gauntlet—are each plainly marked with the
word “restored,” the date, and his name “D.
Tachaux,” so that in future no possible mistake
could be made in confusing his restoration with
a piece of the original armour.
The picture here reproduced is a water-colour
of the shop which is the work of Mr. Stanley
James Rowland, a young artist officially con-
nected with the Department of Arms and Armour
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has
faithfully reproduced the atmosphere and the
arrangement of the shop with the exception of
one or two minor rearrangements so as to show all
the essential objects. Here sits M. Tachaux, the
armourer in his leathern apron, surrounded by
the tools of his craft. Most of them, by the way,

XVII