A Cuirassier Three-Quarter Armour
A Cuirassier Three-Quarter Armour
Circa 1620-30, Probably French Or German
Of bright iron, comprising close-helmet with heavy two-piece skull rising to a low comb and with a tubular plume-holder at the rear, visor and bevor pivoted at the same points, the former pierced with converging tapering bars, bordered by incised lines, and secured by a hook-catch on the right side of the bevor, the latter shaped to the chin and secured by a hook-catch on the left, and single neck-plates front and rear, gorget of one plate front and rear, pivoting on the left and secured on the right, heavy breast-plate with low medial ridge and flanged skirt carrying locking pins for the tassets, back-plate en suite and secured by two hinged hook-catches on either side of the breast-plate, articulated arm defences with large pauldrons each of four plates extending over the front and back, and with five downward-lapping lames over the tops of the arms linked by a turning joint to the upper cannons of the vambraces, bracelet couters with heart-shaped side-wing bisected by a central rib, tubular lower cannons hinged together and secured by a pin-catch, fingered gauntlets each with pointed cuff, wide knee-length tassets each of twenty-one upward-lapping lames, their lower halves detachable at the tenth lame and each secured by two turning pin-catches, and poleyns with pointed side-wings, the main edges line engraved and with turned borders, mostly recessed, dome-headed brass-capped lining rivets throughout: on a wooden stand
Sold for £50,400 inc. premium

Footnotes

  • Provenance:
    American Art Association, Anderson Galleries Inc., New York, European Arms & Armor, Collection of the Late Theodore Offerman..., 11-13 November, 1937, lot 325
    Probably Sotheby & Co., London, Fine Armour and Weapons, 28 November 1950, lot 145
    Christie's & Edmiston's, Glasgow, The Red Hackle Whiskey Collection of Arms, Armour and Militaria [formed by Dr. Charles Hepburn in the 1920s and 30s], 7 June 1979, lot 187 (illustrated with the wrong helmet but sold with the correct helmet at the time of sale)
    Acquired from Robin Wigington in 1980

    This armour appears to be homogeneous

Category: Arms and Armour


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David Williams Bonhams
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Specialist - Arms and Armor