7th May, 2014 10:00
Antique Arms, Armour & Militaria: The John Woodman Higgins Armoury Collection
141
**A POLISH HUSSAR'S ARMOUR WITH APPLIED BRASS ORNAMENT
**A POLISH HUSSAR'S ARMOUR WITH APPLIED BRASS ORNAMENT, SECOND HALF OF THE 17TH CENTURY WITH ADDITIONS AND EMBELLISHMENT OF THE 18TH OR 19TH CENTURIES
comprising two-piece hemispherical skull joined medially by rivets and decorated with four trios of incised lines radiating from a central finial with washer of iron and brass, fitted at its rear with a later neck-guard of four lames, at each side with a later pendent scutiform cheek-piece pierced at its centre with a heart, and at its front with a flat obtusely-pointed peak flanged downwards at its front edge and pierced at its centre rear with a rectangular slot to receive a broad sliding nasal-bar (restored) expanding at its lower end to a foliate finial and secured at the brow by a modern staple and screw, pair of later pauldrons each formed of seven lames of which the lowest five protect only the outside of the arm and extend downwards to just above the elbow, and breastplate and backplate of great weight with outward-flanged neck and arm-openings, each formed of a main plate covering the thorax and three upward-overlapping waist-lames covering the abdomen, the breastplate medially-ridged, the backplate slightly hollowed between the shoulder-blades and the two elements merely butting against one another at the sides, the armour decorated throughout with scalloped brass borders ornamented with punched circles and involving at the right and left of the chest respectively an applied cross paté and a circular medallion cast and chased in low relief with a figure of the Virgin, and elsewhere with bosses and rosettes of the same material, the subsidiary edges of the pauldrons decorated with scalloping, and those of the cuirass with two rows of punched circles separated by punched diagonal lines
Provenance
William Ockelford Oldman, London, 4 January 1929, his no. 19, £25
JWHA Inv. No. 568
For discussions of this type of armour see A. Nadolski, 'Ancient Polish Arms and Armour, Part II', Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, Vol. IV, no. 9, March 1964, pp. 170-86; and Zdzislaw Zygulski Jr, 'The Winged Hussars of Poland', Arms and Armor Annual, Vol. I, Chicago, 1973, pp. 90-103. While incorporating original elements of the 17th century, all appear subsequently to have been added to and decorated, probably for ceremonial use in the 18th or 19th centuries. In the case of the present armour its helmet and cuirass are of the 17th century but its pauldrons, neck-guard, cheek-pieces and decoration are later.
Sold for £8,000
**A POLISH HUSSAR'S ARMOUR WITH APPLIED BRASS ORNAMENT, SECOND HALF OF THE 17TH CENTURY WITH ADDITIONS AND EMBELLISHMENT OF THE 18TH OR 19TH CENTURIES
comprising two-piece hemispherical skull joined medially by rivets and decorated with four trios of incised lines radiating from a central finial with washer of iron and brass, fitted at its rear with a later neck-guard of four lames, at each side with a later pendent scutiform cheek-piece pierced at its centre with a heart, and at its front with a flat obtusely-pointed peak flanged downwards at its front edge and pierced at its centre rear with a rectangular slot to receive a broad sliding nasal-bar (restored) expanding at its lower end to a foliate finial and secured at the brow by a modern staple and screw, pair of later pauldrons each formed of seven lames of which the lowest five protect only the outside of the arm and extend downwards to just above the elbow, and breastplate and backplate of great weight with outward-flanged neck and arm-openings, each formed of a main plate covering the thorax and three upward-overlapping waist-lames covering the abdomen, the breastplate medially-ridged, the backplate slightly hollowed between the shoulder-blades and the two elements merely butting against one another at the sides, the armour decorated throughout with scalloped brass borders ornamented with punched circles and involving at the right and left of the chest respectively an applied cross paté and a circular medallion cast and chased in low relief with a figure of the Virgin, and elsewhere with bosses and rosettes of the same material, the subsidiary edges of the pauldrons decorated with scalloping, and those of the cuirass with two rows of punched circles separated by punched diagonal lines
Provenance
William Ockelford Oldman, London, 4 January 1929, his no. 19, £25
JWHA Inv. No. 568
For discussions of this type of armour see A. Nadolski, 'Ancient Polish Arms and Armour, Part II', Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, Vol. IV, no. 9, March 1964, pp. 170-86; and Zdzislaw Zygulski Jr, 'The Winged Hussars of Poland', Arms and Armor Annual, Vol. I, Chicago, 1973, pp. 90-103. While incorporating original elements of the 17th century, all appear subsequently to have been added to and decorated, probably for ceremonial use in the 18th or 19th centuries. In the case of the present armour its helmet and cuirass are of the 17th century but its pauldrons, neck-guard, cheek-pieces and decoration are later.
