Thomas Del Mar - Arms & Armour

288
A NORTH EUROPEAN CLOSE HELMET, CIRCA 1540,
POSSIBLY LOW GERMAN
formed of a rounded one-piece skull rising to a low medial
comb decorated along its crest with a pair of incised lines
(small cracks to the rear), visor and bevor attached by
common pivots with low domed heads decorated with
cross-hatching, prominent ‘sparrow’s-beak’ visor strongly
stepped beneath a centrally-divided vision-slit and pierced
above the mid-line to either side of the “beak” with a row
of five circular ventilation-holes, and a row of three
diagonal ventilation-slots on the right below the mid-line,
moulded baluster lifting-peg (later), the bevor strongly
shaped to the chin and secured to the skull at the right of
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the neck by a spring-catch with a cross-hatched releasebutton,
and a single gorget-plate front and rear, each with
plain inward turn at the lower edge (cleaned overall, areas
of pitting, the flanged lower edge of the skull pierced at the
centre with a later suspension-hole)
31cm; 12D in high
A very similar helmet is preserved in the Wallace
Collection, London, Cat. No. A167 (James G. Mann, Wallace
Collection Catalogues: European Arms and Armour, Vol. I,
London, 1962, p. 137, pl. 69; and A. V. B. Norman, Wallace
Collection Catalogues: European Arms and Armour,
Supplement, p. 62). It has no lining-rivets in the bevor, in
common with the present example.
£7000-9000
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