AN ITALIAN BARBUTE with iron two-piece skull with broad face opening, the edges with narrow inward turn, covered with plum velvet (worn and incomplete) and with applied embossed copper mounts retaining traces of gilding and red painted finish, comprising crenellated border embossed with beadwork, rosette-shaped side plaques each formed of two overlapping plates, and acanthus comb tapering toward a scrolled finial at the rear and with large overlapping frontal plate scrolled forward at the top and fitted with plume-holder, 17th/18th Century