Arms and Armor: A Pictorial Archive from Nineteenth-Century Sources (Dover Pictorial Archive)

The book opens with an exquisitely detailed illustration of a beautiful cuirassier armour and horse bard which I immediately recognized as having been made for Louis XIII of France, now located at the Musee d'Armee. Every articulation and every rivet of the armour is detailed, every shadow on the steel expertly rendered in cross-hatching.The caption reads: German (17th century.)This is a good preview of the rest of the book. Incredible illustrations; totally bizarre, inaccurate, sketchy descriptions.Each page is scattered with illustrations, usually one or two large central depictions of armours or weapons and then several other assorted pieces of armour or weaponry. Then the caption at the bottom will say something like: "French, German and Italian." There is absolutely no indication of WHICH of the illustrations corresponds to which of those descriptions. It doesn't even say "left to right, top to bottom" or whatever.Here's a sample page: a detail of a gauntlet, a round shield, a man in Gothic-style plate armour, a group of Medieval archers, two swords, and a Maximilian-style bellows visored close helmet. At the bottom: French, German and Spanish (15th century.)Uh...which is which? No explanation at all. Also, many times there will be items on the page which are not remotely within the stated time period - as in this example.Page 32 shows some sort of brigandine or "jack of plate," next to a munitions-grade cuirassier's harness probably from some time during the Thirty Years War (1600s.) The caption claims that all the items on that page are from the 14th and 15th centuries. No. No way in hell.It would have been great if someone with the most cursory knowledge of a chronological timeline of arms and armour had been involved in the creation of this book. I would really like to be able to know more about all of the interesting pieces shown. But there is no text accompanying the drawings, other than the wildly-inaccurate dates and countries of origin at the bottom of each page.However, the illustrations are all top-notch. They're all done in the same cross-hatched style, all extremely detailed. It is similar to the look of late 19th century engravings and newspaper illustrations, like the cartoons by Thomas Nast. That same kind of intricate line style. Very nice to look at.If you're an artist trying to draw historical battle scenes, this would be an absolutely invaluable resource, since one could easily learn to draw basic sketches of armour and weapons by first copying the drawings in this book, and then experimenting with modifying them.Overall I would recommend this book. I just need to point out how totally lacking in context all of the illustrations are. But it's really not that much of a problem. If you're just buying this book to look at the drawings, don't let that deter you. But if you want to actually learn about the armour and weapons, buy books like the Osprey series (Men at Arms) and read the articles on myarmoury.com.

Great book, but a little short. Paperback was crammed into my tiny mailbox.

I bought this book expecting a lot of good pictures and diagrams. I did get that; however, I didn't get anything else. The saving grace of the book is that the pictures are in fact excellent, and, it does say right on the front cover that the pictures are from ninteenth-century sources. The 1800s' aren't exactly known for their high quality of historical accuracy, and it's only in the most contemporary armour, approximately late 1400's through 1600's, that the illustrations are most reliable. Before that point, it can be downright abysmal, as oftentimes it portrays armour from the wrong period; for example, suits of obviously 16th-century armour are depicted upon pages captioned "14th Century". I would not rely upon this as an factual source at all, and only use it as a source of clip-art or artistic inspiration. As I said, the pictures are pretty, but that's about it...

Really nice art but the fact checking could of used a second look. Overall though I recommend this book for the art alone!

Absolutely amazing!Although it lacks thorough information about the illustrations, they're high-quality, highly detailed representations of medieval tools, weapons, and gear. This certainly will assist artists and historians in understanding how did this artifacts worked.Ideal for design.

THIS BOOK IS AH-MAZING..The illustrations are phenomenal! Details are clear and precise.The one and only thing is that I wish the dates below the armor were more clearly labeled as to whats what BUT if knowing the exact region and century is not super important, (but impressive looking armor is) this is a ABSOLUTE MUST BUY.

This is a Christmas present so i liked what came in but i'll have to wait until after christmas to see if my grandson likes it.

very nice reference

This wasn't what I was expecting. Some very good drawings but information about them was very vague.If you're looking for images of a particular period and country, this may not be helpful.

Lots of images but not much variety. Ok.

This book is really useful for who is an illustrator or digital artist. Just bought with other similar books for a personal/game project.

Un libro lleno de ilustraciones y grabados de la historia de las armaduras y armas medievales de toda Europa. Si te gustan este tipo de contenidos, sin duda es tu libro.

Beautiful, high-quality reproductions of Nineteenth century Illustrations.Heavy on Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century plate armour.Descriptions at the bottom of each image page are minimal and often nonspecific to the particular images.Austin