**A GERMAN CAP-A PIE FIELD ARMOUR FOR A CHILD IN THE SOUTH GERMAN STYLE OF THE 16TH CENTURY STYLE, POSSIBLY MUNICH, 19TH CENTURY comprising close helmet with rounded one-piece skull rising to a low roped medial comb and fitted at the nape with a brass plume-holder, visor, upper bevor and lower bevor attached to the skull by common cinquefoil pivots, the visor sloping forward to a stepped and centrally divided vision-slit and fitted at its right with a lifting-peg, the near-upright upper bevor pierced at its left with small circular ventilation-holes and at its right with diagonal ventilation-slots, the upper and lower bevor's each secured by spring-catches, and two gorget plates front and rear, collar of four lames front and rear, the lowest in each case deeper than the rest, breastplate formed of main plate of deep 'peascod' fashion fitted at its arm-openings with moveable gussets and flanged outwards at its lower edge to receive a fauld of three lames and an integral pair of tassets each of five lames the lowest of which is deeper than the rest and descends to a convex edge, backplate formed of a main plate with nearly straight upper edge struck with the quality-control mark of the city of Nuremberg and fitted at its lower edge with a waist-lame flanged outwards at its lower edge to receive a culet of three lames, pair of large symmetrical pauldrons each formed of seven lames of which the lowest four extend inwards only as far as the armpit and are connected in each case by a turner to a fully articulated tubular vambrace with a winged bracelet couter of three lames, pair of gauntlets each formed of a short, flaring, straight-ended cuff fitted at its inside with a fixed separate plate, four metacarpal-plates, a knuckle-plate decorated with a roped transverse rib, four scaled finger-defences and a matching laterally-hinged thumb-defence, pair of cuisses each formed of a long gutter-shaped main plate fitted at its convex upper edge with a short extension-lame and at its lower edge with a winged poleyn of four lames, and a pair of greaves each of full-length tubular form fitted at the rear with a separate heel-plate and at the front with an integral broad-toed sabaton of nine lames, the main edges of the armour decorated with boldly roped inward turns accompanied by recessed borders, the 'strands' of the roping separated by pairs of incised lines, its secondary edges decorated with scallops each punched with a single dot and enclose to the inside by single incised line, and the waist of the breastplate and backplate each decorated with incised cabling 124.5 cm; 49 in high See note at front of catalogue for information concerning stands Provenance William Randolph Hearst, St Donat's Castle, Glamorganshire, Wales Black, Starr and Gorham Inc., New York, 9 December 1959 JWHA Inv. No. 3159 Exhibited Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, 18 March - 16 September 1963 'Road Warriors: Knight Riders', Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, 24 June - 4 September 2000 The present lot forms part of a group of complete armours and close helmets, often of a size intended for wear by a boy, made in Munich in the late 19th century (see for example Thomas Del Mar Ltd, 20 March 2013, lot 305). The armour offered here was was refurbished for William Randolph Hearst by his armourer Raymond Bartel whose mark, a helm over the initials RB is applied to a brass plate fitted within the right pauldron