The armour of the knight was based on the armour worn by Dürer's knight in a drawing of 1498 upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Duerer_-_Stud... The text on top of that drawing says, in German, that "this is the type of armour as it was worn at the time in Germany" ("Dz ist dy rustung Zw der czeit / Im tewczschlant gewest"), literally saying that even in 1498 the armour depicted here was already old fashioned. There's an interesting article on Wikipedia about the engraving: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight,_Death_and_the_Devil Pictures taken at the exhibition "Voyager au Moyen Âge" in Musée de Cluny, Paris (October 22th 2014 - February 23th 2015).