CIRCA 800-700 B.C.

Details

A VILLANOVAN BRONZE HELMET
CIRCA 800-700 B.C.
13 7⁄8 in. (35.2 cm.) long

Provenance

Antiquities, Sotheby's, London, 4 April 1977, lot 187.
with Summa Galleries, Beverley Hills, 1979 (Catalogue 5, no. 41).
William Herbert Hunt (1929-2024), Dallas, acquired from the above.
The William Herbert Hunt Collection: Highly Important Greek, Roman and Etruscan Bronzes, Sotheby's, New York, 19 June 1990, lot 18 (part).
Axel Guttmann (1944-2001), Berlin (Inv. no. AG335/H93).
The Axel Guttmann Collection of Ancient Arms and Armour, Part 2, Christie's, London, 28 April 2004, lot 55 (part).
Private Collection, New York, acquired from the above.
with Phoenix Ancient Art, New York and Geneva.
Christian Levett, London, acquired from the above on behalf of the Mougins Museum of Classical Art, 2010.

Literature

D. von Bothmer, et al., Wealth of the Ancient World: The Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt Collections, Fort Worth, 1983, p. 92, no. 18.
J.M. Eisenberg, "The Spring 2004 Antiquities Sales," Minerva, September-October 2004, p. 33, fig. 2.
M. Burns, "Graeco-Italic Militaria," in M. Merrony, ed., Mougins Museum of Classical Art, Mougins, 2011, p. 185, fig. 1.
N. Nussbaum, "À Mougins, les casques gréco-romains racontent les guerres antiques," Nice-Matin, 24 May 2015, p. 35.

Exhibited

Fort Worth, Kimball Art Museum; Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Detroit Institute of Arts; Dallas Museum of Art, Wealth of the Ancient World: The Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt Collections, 25 June 1983-10 June 1984.
Mougins Museum of Classical Art, 2011-2023 (Inv. no. MMoCA601).

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Hannah Fox Solomon Head of Department, Specialist

hsolomon@christies.com +1 212 636 2256

Lot Essay

The heavy hemispherical bowl is formed of hammered bronze. Riveted in place across the crown are two sheet metal crests which perhaps once supported a larger crest of horsehair. Both have elongated triangular fenestrations along their length, pointed up on one side, down on the other, the fenestrations each divided by four repoussé bosses and framed by bands of bosses, one below, two above, interspersed by smaller raised dots. Along the edge of the bowl is a finely incised band of zigzag flanked by hatched triangles. On either side, at the rim, are three perforations, likely for attachment of a chin strap.

The form of this helmet is significantly rarer than the more usual Villanovan type, which is conical and topped with a large triangular crest. The style of the ornament on the double crests riveted to the bowl of the Mougins helmet is similar to that found on the crests of the standard Villanovan type. Many such helmets or their pottery surrogates served a secondary role as the lid for a pottery or bronze biconical cinerary urn. For an example of the crested helmet type, found near Santa Maria di Capua Vetere, see no. 5.24 in R.D. De Puma, Etruscan Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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