**A CUIRASSIER'S ARMOUR IN THE EARLY 17TH CENTURY GERMAN STYLE comprising close helmet with rounded two-piece skull formed in two halves joined along a low medial comb and fitted at its nape with a plume-holder, two-piece peak (its left terminal restored) and bevor attached by common pivots and secured in each case by swivel-hooks (that at the left the neck missing), the underside of the peak fitted with a U-shaped face defence cut at the top with a pair of vision-slits and over the mouth with a lozenge-shaped ventilation-hole, the bevor pierced at each side with small circular ventilation-holes in a rosette formation, and a single gorget-plate front and rear, collar of two lames front and rear, heavy one-piece breastplate of the second half of the 17th century struck at the neck with the mark A(?)M , pierced around its edges with stitch-holes and flanged outwards at its slightly V-shaped lower edge to receive a fauld of one lame and a pair of long pendent tassets each of eight lames terminating in a poleyn of three lames, one-piece backplate flanged outwards at its lower edge to receive a culet of three lames, large symmetrical pauldrons each of seven lames connected by a turner to fully articulated vambraces formed of a tubular upper and lower cannon connected by a winged bracelet couter of three lames, and gauntlets each formed of an acutely-pointed one-piece cuff closed by a riveted join at the inside of the wrist, four metacarpal-plates, a shaped knuckle-plate, scaled finger-defences (the greater part of the fourth of the right missing) and a hinged and scaled thumb-defence (that of the left detached), the main edges of the armour formed with plain inward turns, and its surfaces decorated with bright bands and bright subsidiary edges against a black-painted ground See note at front of catalogue for information concerning stands Provenance: Mrs Willis D. Wood, Long Island New York, given to the Higgins Museum 15th June 1968 JWHA Inv. No. 3167 Exhibited Oneida County Junior Museum, New York, 11 September-8 January 1968