Beschreibung:

A COMPOSITE NORTH ITALIAN CAP-A-PIE FIELD ARMOUR, LATE 16TH CENTURY comprising close helmet with rounded one-piece skull (trimmed at the right of its face-opening) rising to a low roped medial comb (patched at its apex) and fitted at the nape with a plume-holder of brass (replaced), visor, upper bevor and bevor attached by common pivots (replaced), the visor with centrally divided vision-slit fitted at its right side with a moulded lifting-peg (replaced), the prow-shaped upper bevor pierced at its right side with nine small ventilation-holes in rosette-formation and secured to the bevor proper by means of a pierced stud and swivel-hook, and two short gorget-plates front and rear (the former associated), German collar of three lames front and rear, the lowest at the front struck with the fir-cone quality-control mark of the city of Augsburg (the second lame in each case restored, the lowest in each case associated), breastplate formed of a main plate of deep "peascod" fashion, decorated at the neck with a roped V-shaped rib struck there with the serial number 18 , fitted at its arm-openings with movable gussets (restored), at the right of the chest with a hinged lance-rest (restored) and flanged outwards at its lower edge to receive an associated fauld of two lames (detached) and a pair of pendent tassets (not a pair) each of nine lames (the first of the left associated), German backplate formed of a main plate fitted within its lower edge with a waist-plate flanged outwards at its lower edge to form an integral culet, both parts retaining traces within them of former 'black-and-white' embossed decoration, the waist-lame with welded repairs and patches at each end), two large asymmetrical pauldrons (not a pair), each of seven lames (the lowest of the left with a patched repair) connected by a turner to a fully articulated vambrace formed of a tubular turner and upper cannon linked by a winged bracelet couter of three lames to a tapering tubular lower cannon, two gauntlets (not a pair) each formed of a flared and pointed one-piece cuff closed by a riveted join at the inside of the wrist and fitted with four metacarpal-plates, a shaped knuckle-plate, scaled finger-defences and a scaled and hinged thumb-defence (the last two restored), two cuisses (not a pair and the left extensively patched) each formed of a single medially-ridged plate, boxed at the outside and fitted with an associated poleyn of four lames, the third furnished with a small centrally-puckered side-wing, and tubular greaves connected in each case by four ankle-lames front and rear to a pair of integral round-toed sabatons formed of eight lames at the front and one at the rear (the rear plate of the left greave, the ankle-lames and the sabatons restored), the main edges of the armour formed with roped inwards turns accompanied at points by recessed borders, in some cases enclosed by roped ribs, and its subsidiary edges variously decorated with similar ribs or with single or double incised lines See note at front of catalogue for information concerning stands Provenance Dr. Bashford Dean, Riverdale, New York, sold American Art Association, New York, 23rd November 1928, lot 149 JWHA Inv. No. 611.a-p Exhibited Schenectady Museum Association, Schenectady, New York, 22 September 1959-June 1960 George T. Brown, Vive-President of the Whitinsville Spring Ring Co., 17-20 May 1963 Baptist Church at Adams Square, Worcester, Massachusetts, 28 June-15 July 1963 John Masters, Holden, Massachusetts, 10-16 September 1963 Atlantic Union College, Lancaster, Massachusetts, 7-19 February 1964 Literature Stephen V. Grancsay, the John Woodman Higgins Armory, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1961, p. 79 (ill.)