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292 A SOUTH GERMAN CLOSE HELMET, CIRCA 1530, WITH LATER GROTESQUE VISOR with rounded one-piece skull rising to a low, boldly roped comb, fitted at its rear with two broad neck-lames and at each side, by means of replaced common pivots, with a grotesque visor and bevor in each case secured at the right by a springcatch, the visor embossed in high relief with eyes, a hooked nose, projecting moustache and mouth caricaturing a Turkish warrior, the moustache emphasised by engraved hairs and the eyes set beneath the stepped and roped vision-slits forming the warrior’s eyebrows, and the bevor flanged outwards at its lower edge to form a neck-guard 30cm; 10 3/4in
164
Provenance Gimbel Bothers, New York, 4th December 1942 JWHA Inv. No. 2702.1 Exhibited Sonya Hemlin, WGBH Television, Boston, 10-12 January 1968 Lowe Museum, Miami, Florida, 1 December 1979-13 January 1980 ‡ £3000-5000