**A GERMAN VISORED SALLET AND BEVOR IN THE LATE 15TH CENTURY HIGH 'GOTHIC' STYLE OF LORENZ HELMSCHMIED OF AUGBURG, 19TH CENTURY the sallet with broad rounded skull decorated medially with three low ridges converging at the front and rear, each side of the skull decorated at the rear with a spray of flutes and fitted at the top and laterally in each case with brass eyelets to accommodate the laces of a lining, the rear edge of the crown fitted with a long pointed 'tail' of four lames, the rearmost struck with two marks respectively bearing the characters 'II' and 'CCC', its front cut with an arched face-opening and fitted with a pivoted full visor rising at it upper edge to a high central cusp bordered by flutes and formed with a broad , stepped single broad vision-slit, the visor secured to the skull at the right by a spring-catch, and the bevor formed of a main plate shaped to the chin and throat, a chevron-shaped face-plate articulated to its upper edge and supported at the right of the chin by a projecting spring-catch, and a gorget-plate articulated to the lower edge of the main plate and formed at its free edge with five cusps, the central one fitted with a projecting spring-catch to secure it to the top of the breastplate, the lower edges of both the sallet and bevor decorated with applied brass borders formed at their outer edges with elaborate roping and at their inner ones with fleurs-de-lis separated by pierced hearts, and its subsidiary edges with elaborate cusping and fretting (lightly patinated overall) Sallet 20 cm; 8 in high; Bevor 29 cm; 11 1/2 in high Provenance Spitzer Collection, sold Anderson Galleries, New York, 12 January 1929, lot 674 JWHA Inv. No. 703 Exhibited Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, 18 March - 16 September 1963 Rockefeller Center, New York, 1 - 30 June 1965 Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 6 January 1965 - 21 February 1966 Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma, October - November 1965 Literature J.- B. Giraud & Émile Molinier, La Collection Spitzer, Vol. VI, Paris & London, 1892, pl. XIV The details of these pieces are based on those of several armours in the Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer, Vienna, Inv. Nos A 60, A 62 & A 79, made respectively for the Archduke (later Emperor) Maximilian I and The Archduke Siegmund of Tirol, about 1480-5 (Thomas and Gamber 1976, pp. 99-100, 106-7 & 108-10, pls. 34-5, 40 & 42)