Key plate

Central Europe, 19th century

Malleable iron copy of a seventeenth-century work from Saxony. Hammered plate depicting a Landsknecht with an escutcheon. Pierced keyhole. Decorated with fine engraving.

H: 15 cm

UMP 3339

Key plates punched from thin sheet into the form of a Landsknecht are characteristic of German locksmithing from the mid-seventeenth century. The artistic and technical craftsmanship required to make the escutcheon (engraving, repoussé and chasing) and especially to form the figurative motif reflects the period of the Thirty Years’ War in Central Europe. Vocational training at locksmith and blacksmith schools in the nineteenth century included producing replicas of Late Renaissance and Baroque key plates.