Olympia Auctions
Los 230
A FINE GERMAN MITTEN GAUNTLET FOR THE RIGHT HAND, CIRCA 1520, PROBABLY AUGSBURG, formed of a flared tubular cuff decorated over the ulna with a small almond-shaped boss, tubular metacarpal plate embossed in imitation of four lames on the outside, knuckle-plate with a transverse rib, two finger-plates and three thumb-plates, the lowest embossed with a matching almond-shaped boss at the base, the edge of the cuff decorated with two concentric roped bands framing an etched panel of scrolling foliage, and the remaining borders etched with dentil ornament (the etching worn, some small holes, releathered by William Robinson in 1959), 24.5 cm ¦¦Provenance¦Raymond Bartel, armourer to William Randolph Hearst¦A. B. Bradley, Canterbury ¦¦Exhibited ¦Meyrick Society, Armourer~s Hall, 3rd May 1960¦The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Art of the Armourer, 19th April - 5th May 1963, no. 13¦¦Literature¦Sir James Mann, ~Gauntlets and the Meyrick Society~, Connoisseur, October 1960, pp. 97-102¦¦The double roped bands and the simulated metacarpal plates suggest a possible attribution to Kolman Helmschmied (1471-1532). These features, accompanied by similar etching in the manner of, or by, Daniel Hopfer, are seen on the armour of Kaspar von Frundsberg dated 1527 preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. A377) and a part armour dated 1524 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no. 29.150.3). Similar features can also be seen on another armour made for von Frundsberg around two years earlier, also in Vienna (inv. no. A375). ¦¦Property from the Collection of a Distinguished Scholar and Collector¦¦
