CIRCA 1450-60
Details
An Extremely Rare North Italian 'Export' Sallet
Circa 1450-60
The rounded one-piece skull (slight damage to the brow) with low comb of rectangular section, pierced with a rectangular slot for a crest-holder, short pointed tail, and iron lining rivets with small spirally fluted heads, struck on the right a group of three marks of North Italian type, the visor with single vision-slit and cusped upper edge, the lower edge throughout with a thick, angular outward turn, the surfaces rust pitted throughout
9¼in. (23.5cm.) high
Sallets of this kind were made in North Italy for export to Western and Northern Europe. Surviving examples are extremely rare, and this appears to be the only example in private hands, apart from what is perhaps the finest of all, in the famous Trapp armoury at Churburg
The marks comprise three pairs of letters, those in the upper one (illegible) crowned, and those in the two below each apparently 'PR' ('BR'?) under a contraction mark. This combination does not seem to be recorded elsewhere, but a similar 'PR' mark is found by itself on helmets in the Glasgow Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and the Museo Civico L.Marzoli, Brescia
See Claude Blair, European Armour, frontispiece and fig. 105; 'The Blithfield Sallet', The Archaeological Journal, CXI (1955), pp. 160-67; Trapp & Mann, The Armoury of the Castle of Churburg, 1929, No. 23; and, for the 'PR' mark, F. Rossi & N. di Carpegna, Armi Antiche dal Museo Civico L.Marzoli, Brescia, 1969, No.s 71 and 72; F. Rossi, Armi e Armaoli Bresciani del '400, 1971, fig. 62, no. 68; and L.G. Boccia & J.A. Godoy, Museo Poldi Pezzoli. Armeria I, Milan, 1985, p. 85
Circa 1450-60
The rounded one-piece skull (slight damage to the brow) with low comb of rectangular section, pierced with a rectangular slot for a crest-holder, short pointed tail, and iron lining rivets with small spirally fluted heads, struck on the right a group of three marks of North Italian type, the visor with single vision-slit and cusped upper edge, the lower edge throughout with a thick, angular outward turn, the surfaces rust pitted throughout
9¼in. (23.5cm.) high
Sallets of this kind were made in North Italy for export to Western and Northern Europe. Surviving examples are extremely rare, and this appears to be the only example in private hands, apart from what is perhaps the finest of all, in the famous Trapp armoury at Churburg
The marks comprise three pairs of letters, those in the upper one (illegible) crowned, and those in the two below each apparently 'PR' ('BR'?) under a contraction mark. This combination does not seem to be recorded elsewhere, but a similar 'PR' mark is found by itself on helmets in the Glasgow Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and the Museo Civico L.Marzoli, Brescia
See Claude Blair, European Armour, frontispiece and fig. 105; 'The Blithfield Sallet', The Archaeological Journal, CXI (1955), pp. 160-67; Trapp & Mann, The Armoury of the Castle of Churburg, 1929, No. 23; and, for the 'PR' mark, F. Rossi & N. di Carpegna, Armi Antiche dal Museo Civico L.Marzoli, Brescia, 1969, No.s 71 and 72; F. Rossi, Armi e Armaoli Bresciani del '400, 1971, fig. 62, no. 68; and L.G. Boccia & J.A. Godoy, Museo Poldi Pezzoli. Armeria I, Milan, 1985, p. 85
Provenance
The Cranbrook Academy of Arts, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Sotheby & Co., 15 May 1972, Lot 206
Further details
See front cover illustration