‡A COMPOSITE NORTH GERMAN 'BLACK-AND-WHITE' CAP-A-PIE FIELD ARMOUR

‡A COMPOSITE NORTH GERMAN 'BLACK-AND-WHITE' CAP-A-PIE FIELD ARMOUR, LATE 16TH TO EARLY 17TH CENTURY comprising burgonet with rounded two-piece skull joined along the crest of a high medial comb, fitted at the brow with a broad obtusely pointed pivoted peak, flanged outwards at its lower edge to receive a neck-guard of one lame (patched), and fitted at each side with a hinged cheek-piece (the left restored, patched), falling buffe (restored using old metal), formed of three overlapping plates, pierced at each side with a circular arrangement of nine ventilation-holes, the lowest plate shaped to the point of the chin and flanged outwards, each supported at its right side by a projecting spring-catch; 'Almain' collar formed of a single deep plate front and rear, the front one with an additional plate at its base (restored) and fitted at each side with a spaudler of six lames; a pair of besgews (restored) each drawn-out to a central point; breastplate formed of a medially-ridged main plate with near-straight upper edge, projecting forward over the belly, fitted at its arm-openings with moveable gussets and at its flanged lower edge with a fauld of three lames, the lowest of which is cut at its centre with a shallow arch separating a pair of long tassets each of eleven lames and fitted at its lower end with a poleyn of a single plate; one-piece backplate flanged outwards at its lower edge to receive a deep culet of one lame; fully articulated vambraces formed in each case of a tubular upper and lower cannon linked to one another by an intervening winged couter of three lames, open at the inside of the elbow, the upper canon surmounted by a turner; a pair of fingered gauntlets each formed of a long flared and acutely-pointed cuff with a fixed separate inner plate, five metacarpal-plates, a transversely-roped knuckle-plate, a shaped finger-plate and scaled finger and thumb-defences (restored); a pair of tubular greaves (restored) each terminating in an integral broad-toed sabaton of eight lames (restored), the main edges of the armour formed with roped inward turns, accompanied by borders embossed with stylised acanthus foliage burnished bright, and the skull and cheek-pieces of the burgonet, and the buff, couters, poleyns and sabatons all embossed with fleur-de-lys (extensively restored), against a contrasting black painted ground: on an articulated wooden stand with base 188.0 cm; 74 in high Provenance Henry Griffith Keasbey (1850-1932) by 1925 American Art Galleries, New York, 27th November 1925, lot 152 George F. Harding Jr., Chicago Transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1982, Acc. 2105 For similarly decorated North German armours, see Konrad Ullmann, "Zur Frage der Stillmermale an niederdeutschen Plattnerarbeiten", in Waffen und Kostumkünde Vol. 5, 1962, pp.21-40