**A COMPOSITE CAP-A-PIE TOURNAMENT ARMOUR WITH LATER ETCHED AND GILT DECORATION, ITALIAN AND GERMAN, EARLY TO LATE 16TH CENTURY WITH 19TH CENTURY ADDITIONS comprising close helmet with rounded one-piece skull rising at its apex to a prominent point from which radiate, alternately, four panels of scales and four ridges, visor and decorative `wings` attached to the skull at each side by common pivots with pierced and chased brass washers, the visor embossed in high relief as a grotesque mask, its eyebrows pierced with vision-slits, and the wings embossed in each case with radiating ribs separating pierced decoration, and a pair of cheek-pieces hinged to the skull at each side and fastened to one another at the chin by a turning-pin and keyhole-slot, the right cheek-piece fitted with a swivel-hook to secure the visor, and the skull and cheek-pieces each formed with internally hollowed rims designed to lock over and rotate on the turned upper edge of the collar, the latter formed of three lames front and rear, breastplate formed of a heavy rounded main plate with a shallow neck-opening, fixed gussets at the arm-openings, sturdy hasps at the shoulders and sides for the attachment of a backplate, a folding-lance-rest , several large holes, some with threaded inserts, for the attachment of an earlier lance-rest and tournament reinforces, its lower edge fitted with a shallow waist-lame to receive a fauld of three lames with applied turns at their outer edges, the centre of the lower edge of the third cut with a shallow arch separating a pair of long, tapering, pendent one-piece tassets decorated with slightly diverging flutes, backplate formed of a main plate with nearly straight upper edge, a pair of fixed side-plates (each patched), and a deep waist-lame flanged outwards at it lower edge to receive a culet of one lame, two large near-symmetrical pauldrons each formed of seven lames of which the lowest four extend inwards only to the armpit, two fully articulated tubular vambraces each surmounted by a turner and furnished with a winged bracelet couter of three lames, the central one in each case of bracelet construction and originally forming part of a three-piece vambrace, the front of the left one fitted with a turning-pin to attach a pasguard shaped to the elbow and the underlying wing of the couter, two gauntlets (the right holed and repaired at several points) each formed of a long flared and pointed cuff with a short hinged inner plate, six metacarpal-plates, a shaped knuckle-plate and the main plate of a laterally-hinged thumb-defence, pair of cuisses each formed of a long gutter-shaped main plate fitted at its convex upper end with a short extension lame and at its lower end with a winged poleyn of four lames (the main plate in each case patched at the point of the knee), and a pair of greaves each of full-length tubular form cut at the rear with a slit to receive a spur and fitted at the front with an integral broad-toed sabaton of nine lames, each decorated on its upper surface with a spray of flutes of shallow V-shaped section, the main edges of the armour decorated with roped inward turns except at the neck-opening and gussets of the breastplate which have plain angular outward turns, the borders of the armour etched and gilt on a stippled and blackened ground with running foliage, and the remainder of the surface etched and gilt overall on a similar ground with a diaper pattern of lozenges enclosing fleurs-de-lis, except on the mask of the visor which is gilt but devoid of etching (the helmet, waist-lame of the breastplate, tassets, culet, lower cannons of the vambraces and legharness restored) See note at front of catalogue for information concerning stands Provenance The Prussian Royal Collections (probably those formed by Prince Carl of Prussia) Duque del Infantado, Vineulas Castle, Madrid, Spain, 1924 - May 1931 JWHA Inv. No. 1646 Literature Hans Schedelmann, `Der Waffensammler`, Waffen- und Kostümkunde, 3rd series, vol. 6, 1964, p. 55, fig. 15. The breastplate represents a rare early 16th century Italian form for use in the jousts. The helmet is closely comparable with examples in the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, Inv. No. IV. 33, (Dufty & Reid 1968, pl. XCII), and the Musée de l`Armée, Paris, inv. no. H.123 (Reverseau 1982, pp. 14 & 77, fig. 1 & 20)
