Plastron d'armure de fantassin, Flandres... - Lot 52 - Pierre Bergé & Associés

Plastron d'armure de fantassin, Flandres vers 1500. An infantry breast-plate, Flemish, circa 1500. Of broad slightly globose form with strong medial ridge, the neck-opening deep and slightly V-shaped, the edge with outward turn forming an angular flange, the arm-openings en suite, and fitted skirt of three articulated lames. H. overall: 48.5 cm - W.: 38.7 cm - Wt.: 4025 g. This belongs to a rare group of breast-plates constructed in one piece (without separate gussets for the arm-openings) and which were in vogue in Western Europe in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. They also enjoyed popularity in England and examples are recorded both in monumental church brasses and in the Warwick Pageant manuscript of circa 1483-90. Some examples bear marks that appear to be Flemish, one for instance being the child's cuirass made for Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy in circa 1490, preserved in the former Imperial collection in Vienna (A 109a). Another is in the Royal Armouries, Leeds (inv.no. III 71), possibly from the historic collection; another, in the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum Zurich (LM 4955) bears the mark of the workshop founded in 1495 by the future Emperor Maximilian I, at Arbois in Burgundy. See THOMAS, B. & GAMBER, O, Katalog der Leibrüstkammer, I, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1976, p.127 and pl. 49. Also see DUFTY, A.R., European Armour in The Tower of London, 1968, pls. XV and CX; and LAKING, G.F.: A Record of European Armour and Arms, 1920, p.207, fig. 241.