A Historic Collection of Armorer’s Tools

The tools of the first Met Armorer, Daniel Tachaux, consist of 644 accessioned objects which were acquired in 1912, around the time the curatorial department of Arms & Armor was created, and represent the largest and most comprehensive collection of historic European armorer’s tools in an institution. My main project was to research, identify, organize, photograph, inventory, and catalogue these specialized tools, about which relatively little is currently known or understood, and very little documentation to be found. During my time as an intern in spring 2023, I created a new, complete inventory of these objects, and created a catalogue of the 99 hammers, containing photos, dimensions, weights, condition notes, research notes, and reference notes for each individual hammer. In addition to these duties, I was given the opportunity to present my research at donor events and participate in a series of video shoots about the Armor lab for Adam Savage’s YouTube channel in collaboration with the Met’s External Affairs department.

In fall 2023, I returned to continue this project, this time focusing on the 86 anvils of this collection, while working on a number of other side projects.

Read my article for the departmental e-newsletter here.

Watch the Adam Savage video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGK7rbuGO-0 (following up on a previous video from his first series on the Armor lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F643XUqJ-o)

NOTE: Permission to share archival images and snapshots of proprietary departmental documentation (including the documents I created for Arms & Armor as an intern), for the purposes of illustrating my work at the Met in this portfolio, granted by then Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Curator in Charge, Pierre Terjanian.