The Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum, also known as The Samurai Collection, [1] is a museum of samurai armor located at 2501 North Harwood Street, Dallas, Texas, USA. It contains nearly three hundred Japanese samurai objects, including suits of armor, helmets, masks, horse armor, and weaponry, [2] dating from the 12th to the 19th century AD with a focus on the Edo period.
The Higgins Armory Museum is the name of a collection in the Worcester Art Museum. It was formerly a separate museum located in the nearby Higgins Armory Building in Worcester, Massachusetts, dedicated to the display of arms and armor. It was "the only museum in the country devoted solely to arms and armor" and had the second largest arms and armor collection in the country from its founding in 1931 until 2004, behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The collection consists of 2,000 objects, including 24 full suits of armor. The museum closed at the end of 2013 due to a lack of funding. Its collection and endowment were transferred and integrated into the Worcester Art Museum, with the collection on show in its own gallery. The former museum building was sold in December 2014 and now serves as a local events venue.
Kabuto is a type of helmet first used by ancient Japanese warriors which, in later periods, became an important part of the traditional Japanese armour worn by the samurai class and their retainers in feudal Japan.
The ō-yoroi (大鎧) is a prominent example of early Japanese armor worn by the samurai class of feudal Japan. The term ō-yoroi means "great armor."
Men-yoroi (面鎧), also called menpō (面頬) or mengu (面具), are various types of facial armour that were worn by the samurai class and their retainers in feudal Japan. These include the sōmen, menpō, hanbō or hanpō, and happuri.
Gabriel Barbier-Mueller is the founder and CEO of Harwood International. Gabriel was born and raised in Geneva, Switzerland. He came to Dallas in 1979 and graduated from Dallas's Southern Methodist University. He married Texan Ann Smith.
The John E. Carlson Coliseum is a 4,200-seat multi-purpose arena in Fargo, North Dakota. It is the home of the North Dakota State University ice hockey club team of the American Collegiate Hockey Association.
Sangu is the term for the three armour components that protected the extremities of the samurai class of feudal Japan.
A lame is a solid piece of sheet metal used as a component of a larger section of plate armor used in Europe during the medieval period. It is used in armors to provide articulations or the joining of the armor elements. The size is usually small with a narrow and rectangular shape. Multiple lames are riveted together or connected by leather straps or cloth lacing to form an articulated piece of armor that provides flexible protection. The armor worn by the samurai class of feudal Japan used lames in the construction of many of their individual armor parts. The Japanese term is ita, which can both refer to the lame or its borderings.
The Barbier-Mueller Museum, founded in 1977, is located at 10 rue Jean-Calvin, in Geneva, Switzerland. Its collection contains over 7,000 pieces and includes works of art from Tribal and Classical antiquity as well as sculptures, fabrics and ornaments from "primitive" civilizations around the world. Its goal is to preserve, study, and publish the collection begun by Josef Müller in 1907 and carried on by his daughter Monique and son-in-law Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller.
The Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum is a general interest museum within historic Roscoe Village, a restored Ohio & Erie Canal town in Coshocton, OH. It has four permanent themed exhibits within five galleries, including a Native American Gallery, Historic Ohio, Asian, and 19th and 20th Century Decorative Arts. There are more than 17,000 items in its collections.
The Museu Barbier-Mueller d'Art Precolombí was the only museum in Europe devoted exclusively to the artistic legacy of the pre-Columbian cultures of the Americas. It was located in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, Spain. The museum was established in 1997 to house the pre-Columbian art collection formerly held by its parent museum, the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Genève, Switzerland, which was loaned to the city of Barcelona. In 2012, the museum was unable to reach a purchase agreement with the collection's owner Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller. Subsequently, the world's most important Pre-Columbian collection in private hands was split and auctioned at Southeby's on 22 March 2013.
Scholars agree that Japanese armour first appeared in the 4th century, with the discovery of the cuirass and basic helmets in graves. During the Heian period (794-1185), the unique Japanese samurai armour ō-yoroi and dō-maru appeared. The Japanese cuirass evolved into the more familiar style of body armour worn by the samurai known as the dou or dō, with the use of leather straps (nerigawa), and lacquer for weatherproofing. Leather and/or iron scales were also used to construct samurai armours, with leather and eventually silk lace used to connect the individual scales (kozane) of these cuirasses.
The Hayashibara Museum of Art is an art museum owned by the Hayashibara Group, and located at 2-7-15 Marunouchi, Kita-ku, Okayama, the site of a former guesthouse beside the inner moat of Okayama Castle. Its 6,832 square meter interior was designed by Kunio Maekawa.
Dō or dou (胴) "breastplate, cuirass" is one of the major components of Japanese armour worn by the samurai and ashigaru or foot soldiers of feudal Japan.
Abumi (鐙), Japanese stirrups, were used in Japan as early as the 5th century, and were a necessary component along with the Japanese saddle (kura) for the use of horses in warfare. Abumi became the type of stirrup used by the samurai class of feudal Japan.
Kura (鞍), is the generic name for the Japanese saddle. The word "kura" is most commonly associated with the saddle used by the samurai class of feudal Japan. Over time the Japanese added elements of their own until the Japanese saddle became an identifiable style, also known as the samurai saddle.
Kurabit is a traditional shield originating from the Mentawai Islands off the coast of West Sumatra, Indonesia.
Josef Müller was a Swiss art collector and curator.
The Samurai Museum Berlin is a private museum of artifacts and art objects of the Japanese samurai warrior class, from the private collection of the builder Peter Janssen. It opened in 2022 and is located in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany.