**A JOUSTING HELM IN THE EARLY 15TH CENTURY STYLE, 19TH CENTURY, FROM THE WORKSHOP OF SAMUEL LUKE PRATT formed of as high one-piece crown rising at its rear to a rounded point (extensively repaired with riveted patches) and descending over the nape and sides to a straight inward-turned lower edge, and fitted at each side with a face-defence extending down to the same level and pierced at its right with numerous small circular ventilation-holes, its upper edge and the upper edge of the face-opening of the crown forming the edges of a 'frog-mouthed' vision slit, the lower edge of the helm bordered by brass-capped round-headed rivets with square washers shaped peripherally with eight cusps (acid-pitted overall) 36.5 cm; 14¼ in Provenance Londesborough Collection, sold Christie, Manson and Woods, 4th July 1888, probably lot 123 'Tilting helmet - temp. Henry V [a forgery] sold for £2 2s.' Literature James Robinson Planché, Cyclopaedia of Costume or Dictionary of Dress, 1876, Vol 1., p.284 The form of the helm is based on that of Henry V (d. 1422) in Westminster Abbey (Laking 1920, Vol. II, figs 49 a & b). For similar helms from the workshop of Samuel Luke Pratt of Bond Street, London, see Laking 1922, Vol V, fig. 1545,c; and Jonathan Tavares, Samuel Luke Pratt and the Arms & Armor Trade in Victorian Britain, Doctoral Dissertation, Bard College, New York, 2013, fig. 185. The helm was almost certainly made for Pratt by his principal faker, Thomas Grimshaw of Clerkenwell, London.