SOUTHERN INDIA, 17TH CENTURY

This vambrace's raised ogival form can be paralleled with the steel vambrace, chiselled with chevrons, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for which a 17th century date is suggested (Robert Elgood, Hindu Arms and Rituals, Chicago, 2004, ill.5.11, p.63). They share the raised ogival form, the applied wrist band and the applied steel cut decoration frequently found on southern Indian armours and shields (Bashir Mohammed, L'Art des Chevaliers en terre d'Islam, Milan, 2007). A further comparable example is a vambrace kept in the Jagdish and Kamla Museum of Indian Art, attributed to 17th century southern India (Stuart Cary Welch, India, Art and Culture, 1300-1900, New York 1985, ill. 213, p.317).