Bonhams 1793 : A Rare Pair Of Large Mexican Rowel Spurs

Entirely of iron, each with short neck carrying a riveted slightly curved rectangular guard roughly incised with a bird, the neck continuing as a long upcurved rowel-box, each side of rounded triangular section and both carrying two coiled spring-like guards, the front terminating in a cusped mount pierced with two holes on each side of the rowel, the latter comprising six pointed spikes of circular section, the heel-bands each with incised decoration along one side between a pair of coils, the terminals pierced for leathers, the larger outer ones each with four keyhole-shaped piercings (some light pitting overall) (2)
37 cm.

Sold for £5,625 inc. premium

Footnotes

For other Mexican spurs (so-called Conquistador spurs) see Antonio Cortes, Hierros Forjados, Coleccion del Museo Nacional de Arqueologia, Historia Y Etnografia, 1935, pp. 114-118, pls. 17-26; Stephen V. Grancsay, A Loan Exhibition Of Equestrian Equipment From The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, The J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, May 4 to July 3, 1955, nos. 115 and 118 (illustrated); and M. Simmonds & T. Turley, Southwestern Colonial Ironwork, The Spanish Blacksmithing Tradition from Texas to California, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, 1980, pp. 110-13

For a more elaborate example formerly in the Mrs. G.E.P. How Collection and sold in these Rooms see Antique Arms and Armour..., 25 July 2007, lot 94

Category: Arms and Armour

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