Beschreibung:

Armure complète pour le combat à pied, composée de rares éléments allemands et italiens du Nord pour l'exportation, alla tedesca, en partie vers 1480-90. A full Gothic foot armour assembled on a foundation of rare elements, both German and North Italian export, alla tedesca, partly circa 1480-90. Including a finely formed breast-plate, North Italian, in the German fashion, of two-part overlapping construction joined by four rivets, the upper plate with narrow raised outward turns at the neck and arm-holes, embossed with an inverted triangular panel below the top and the arm-holes bordered by double flutes, the lower plate triangular, recessed in the middle and embossed with a central ridge over most of its length, and the lower edge flanged outwards and carrying a composed skirt of three lames, German back-plate constructed of three articulated plates each embossed with a pair of flutes radiating and broadening from the basal flange, the upper plate with slightly raised borders around the arm-holes, the outer edges not turned, the upper two plates cusped along the subsidiary edges and the lower plate carrying a skirt of three lames embossed with a central fan of flutes (the middle plate of the back-plate associated, the upper and the lower plates of the skirt 19th century), a pair of full arm defences (composed, some plates 19th century) each with light spaulders embossed with a group of four flutes radiating over the upper two plates, the lower plate embossed with a diagonal arrangement of four flutes over the rear plane and embossed with a pair of flutes along the edge of the elbow-opening, the couters also bordered with pairs of flutes together with a broader pair embossed across the middle, with pairs of hinged part-fluted plates forming the lowe-cannons, their edges with angular turns, and a pair of gauntlets in the German High Gothic style, embossed and fluted, the subsidiary edges cut with fretted ornament, a pair of full leg defences, the cuisses of four-part construction, the main plates in the Italian manner, each of the right-hand plates 15th century and each decorated over the right-hand side with a rear-swept spray of four flutes, later poleyns, two full greaves nearly forming a pair, each late 15th/early 16th century, each with plain turned edges and each flared out at the base to accommodate the present later solerets, with a tailed sallet in the German Gothic style, 19th century, formed in one piece, the skull rising to a flattened angular comb, pierced for a crest, flared out at the sides and at the rear to form a pointed tail, the lower edge of the sight formed as an angular flange projecting forwards of the upper edge, studded with lining rivets in an arc in line with the sight and the edge turned inwards, with a modern falling bevor in German late 15th century style, a pair of modern tassets and a pair of modern beseagues: on a purpose-built fabric-covered-mannequin, with sculpted mask, and the arms and torso covered with portions of mail from a European early 16th century shirt, the torso of close-set small riveted iron rings, the collar retaining some latten rings around the edge. H.: 175 cm. The breast-plate belongs to a distinctive group of North Italian breast-plates for foot soldiers constructed in the late 15th century in the German fashion and intended for export. Examples of these are rare in private ownership. A closely comparable example was formerly in the collection of R. T. Gwynn, previously remove from Schloss Churburg in the South Tyrol. See, BOCCIA, Lionello G., Le armature di S. Maria delle Grazie di Curtatone di Mantova e l'Armatura Lombarda del'400, 1982, p.162, pl. 159. For four additional examples preserved in institutional collections, see SCALINI, Mario, The Armoury of the Castle of Churburg, vol.II, 1996, pls.30, 31, 33 and 34.