Grand bacinet à mézail, belle reconstitution... - Lot 162 - Pierre Bergé & Associés

Grand bacinet à mézail, belle reconstitution dans le style de Milan vers 1450, probablement XIXe siècle. A finely constructed visored Great bascinet, in the Milanese style of circa 1450, 19th century. Of large proportions, with rounded skull drawn-up to a medial ridge, extending to cover the neck at the rear, the base encircled by lining rivets, fitted with pivoted hinged visor formed with a convex snout pierced with six rows of circular breathes left and right, the sights formed as a series of slots arranged in two tiers and the lower edge of the sights formed with a projecting flange, the bevor pivoting at separate points and with out turned angular edge, fitted with a wrapper of two lames secured in a fixed position by rivets on both sides, the visor overlapped by the wrapper and the two parts locked by a spring-catch on the right, the lower plate of the wrapper engaging a further spring-catch at the base of the skull on the right-hand side, the skull and the visor each bearing spurious marks in the Italian manner, one a split cross and the other Y crowned, and the forward points of the neck defence and the wrapper each pierced for a strap. H.: 34 cm - L.: 28.5 cm - W.: 22 cm - Wt.: 4415 g. Probably no more than ten period examples of this type of helmet are known to survive in institutional collections; none are recorded in private ownership. This example is probably modelled on the well-known armour alla Francese of Kurfürst Friedrich I von Pfalz by Tomaso and Antonio Missaglia, preserved in the former Imperial Armoury, Vienna (A 2). A unique characteristic of this type of bascinet is the placement of a fixed wrapper designed to overlap the lower edge of the visor. See, BOCCIA, L.G. & COELHO, E.T., L'arte dell'armatura in Italia, 1967, ill. 94, pp.141-142. And also, THOMAS, Bruno & GAMBER, Ortwin, Katalog der Leibrüstkammer, I Teil, 1976, pp.56-58, ill. 20-21.