INDIA, LATE 16TH OR 17TH CENTURY

Surviving Mughal helmets are rare, with only a handful of examples scattered across the world’s museum collections. Here the form deviates from the shallow dome form associated with later Indian helmets, presenting an intermediate stage between them and earlier Turkmen and Timurid helmets. A helmet of comparable form and overlaid with qur’anic verses, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (36.25.127), is attributed to the 17th century Deccan. The absence of rich decorations on the present helmet and its excellent condition make its survival all the more remarkable.