Beschreibung:

Rare timbre de Zischägge d'inspiration ottomane, gravé à l'eau forte, portant l'inscription turque Mehmet après sa prise lors de « la longue guerre » de Hongrie (1591-1606), Nuremberg vers 1560-80. A rare etched skull of a Nuremberg light cavalry Zischägge in the Ottoman fashion, bearing the Ottoman inscription "Mohammed", the helmet captured by the Turks during the Austro-Turkish war (1591-1606), circa 1560-80. Conical in the style of an Ottoman çiçak and formed in one piece, drawn-up to a narrow point with acorn finial, embossed with a broad radiating band of closeset narrow fluting entirely filled with an etched counterfeit-Ottoman pattern of scrolling tendrils and foliage all arranged as symmetrical pairs of panels, the base recessed and decorated with an etched band of running foliage on a stippled ground, etched ropework border, struck with Nuremberg mark, cut with the Ottoman small character Mohammed at the front, a character resembling the letter C cut close-by, and retaining a single staple for fitting a nasal-guard together with six loops about the sides and rear. H.: 28 cm - L.: 22.5 cm - W.: 19.5 cm - Wt.: 1285 g. Provenance: Anonymous sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet A.G., Zurich, 25th November, 1980, lot 76. The Ottoman helmet known as a "çiçak" provided the model for the shape of the skull of the present helmet; it is evidence of the European fashion for the Turkish taste which emerged in Europe during the last quarter of the 16th century, then at war against the Ottoman Empire. This type of helmet produced in Nuremberg were intended for export to Poland and Hungary. The engraved mark reads "Mohammed" or "Mehmed". It could be either an arsenal mark or a booty reference from within the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet III (1595-1603) who defeated the forces of the Holy Roman Empire at the battle of Mezokeresztes in 1596. The character resembling the letter C is also found stamped on the haft of a mace, Polish or Hungarian, offered as lot 91 from the Klingbeil Collection. A similar helmet formerly in the armoury of the Princes Radziwill at Niesweiz is dated 1561 (now removed to Wawel Castle, Cracow, Inv.-Nr. 1370); another, also Nuremberg, is in The Wallace Collection, London (A 104); another, the etched decoration almost identical, is in the Museums für Deutsche Geschichte, Berlin (W 4697); another example, again Nuremberg marked, is in the collection of the Princes Odescalchi, Rome (inv. no. 37); and another, also Nuremberg marked and with comparable etched patterns is in the von Kienbusch collection at The Philadelphia Museum of Art (see The Kretzschmar von Kienbusch Collection of Armor and Arms, Princeton, 1963, catalogue No.90). Translation by Lucien Arcache, Expert for Islamic Art in Paris.