Thomas Del Mar - Arms & Armour

264
A FINE PAIR OF SOUTH GERMAN ETCHED AND GILT
GAUNTLETS, CIRCA 1560, PROBABLY LANDSHUT
each formed of a flared and obtusely-pointed cuff with
fixed inner plate, its upper edge turned inwards and
bearing slight traces of file-roping, the lower end of its
outer plate decorated over the ulna with an almond-shaped
boss, six upward-overlapping metacarpal-plates, shaped
knuckle-plate and finger-plate, finely etched and gilt in
recessed borders and medial bands and on the knuckleand
finger-plates with bands of arabesque interlace, and at
the upper edges of each metacarpal-plate with narrower
bands of rectangular guilloche (cuff of left gauntlet slightly
deformed, lowest five plates of left, and inner cuff -plate of
right gauntlet probably restored using old plates, both
lacking scaled finger- and thumb-defences, some bruising,
cracking and perforation, light overall patination, gilding
extensively worn)
Inv. no. A044.
(2)
Arabesque ornament of the kind recorded here occurs on
several south German garnitures of the third quarter of the
16th century, mainly connected with the former Imperial
armoury in Vienna. Elements of these garnitures are now
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264
widely dispersed as a result of the plundering of the
armoury by Napoleonic troops in 1805. They can be seen
in the Hofjagd- und Rüüstkammer, Vienna, Inv. Nos A925,
A1118, A2259 & B126, the Musée de l’Armée, Paris, Cat.
Nos G.62 and 63, the Wallace Collection, London, Cat. No.
A38, the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, Inv. Nos II. 172
& VI. 62, the Museum Narodowe, Cracow, the Museo
Stibbert, Florence, Cat. No. 147, the J. W. Higgins Armory
Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, Acc. No. 2587, The
Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute, Chicago, and
the former collections of W. R. Hearst and S. V. Grancsay.
See J. F. Hayward 1953, p. 40, pl. VIII,b; J. G. Mann 1962,
pp. 45-6, pls 22 & 51; A. V. B. Norman 1986, pp. 14-16. In
some cases the decoration has a blackened ground, while
in others, as here, it has a gilt one. The cuff of the right
gauntlet in the Museo Stibbert is struck with the qualitycontrol
mark of the city of Augsburg. See L. G. Boccia & E.
T. Coelho 1967, p. 83, fig.140. The breastplate of the partial
armour in the Higgins Museum, on the other hand, is struck
with the quality-control mark of the city of Landshut
accompanied by the mark of the distinguished Landshut
armourer Wolfgang Grosschedel, recorded 1517-62. See S.
V. Grancsay 1961, pp. 64-5). The decoration of the gauntlets
catalogued here most closely resembles that of the
Landshut piece.
£5000-7000