Lot 83
83
A GERMAN DEMI-SHAFFRON, of bright steel, composed of a main plate shaped to the upper part of the horse's head and shaped round the eyes and ears, riveted ear-guards, and hinged side-plates, half-hinge at the top for a pate-plate (missing), the main edges turned and roped throughout, the main plate pierced for two pairs of rosette-shaped brass washers for lining laces and with holes for an escutcheon and plume-holder (both missing), the hinges of brass decorated with conventional foliage, decorated throughout with bands and borders of finely etched running vine foliage involving trophies of arms, grotesques, one wearing a flaming crown, and on each side the head of a double-eared horse, and domed brass rivets, circa 1550-60, probably Landshut

Details
A GERMAN DEMI-SHAFFRON, of bright steel, composed of a main plate shaped to the upper part of the horse's head and shaped round the eyes and ears, riveted ear-guards, and hinged side-plates, half-hinge at the top for a pate-plate (missing), the main edges turned and roped throughout, the main plate pierced for two pairs of rosette-shaped brass washers for lining laces and with holes for an escutcheon and plume-holder (both missing), the hinges of brass decorated with conventional foliage, decorated throughout with bands and borders of finely etched running vine foliage involving trophies of arms, grotesques, one wearing a flaming crown, and on each side the head of a double-eared horse, and domed brass rivets, circa 1550-60, probably Landshut
14½in.
Provenance
Anon., Sotheby & Co., 15 April, 1937, lot 130
Raymond Bartell
W.R. Hearst, Sotheby & Co., 17 March, 1953, lot 84
Literature
J.F. Hayward, 'Notes on the Hearst Collection formerly at St. Donats Castle', J.A.A.S., I, pp. 40-41, pl. VIIIc; C.B. Beard, 'Horse Armour at St. Donat's', Connoisseur, March, 1940, p. 65, No. VI

Lot Essay

Probably from one of a group of armours made by Wolfgang Großbschedel of Landshut and probably made for the great tournament held by the Emperor Ferdinand I at Vienna in 1560, of which other pieces are in the Kunsthistoriches Museum Vienna, the Wallace Collection and the Museée de l'Armee, Paris. See A.V.B. Norman, The Wallace Collection Catalogues: European Arms and Armour Supplement, pp. 12-13

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