with one-piece skull rising to a low boldly roped medial comb pierced at its apex with two large holes, the foremost at one time retaining a later funerary crest, and visor, upper bevor and bevor attached to it by common pivots, the visor with stepped centrally-divided vision-slit, fitted at its right side with a lifting-peg that also serves as a pull to release the spring-catch securing it to the upper bevor, the latter of prow-shaped form pierced in a raised rib across the mouth, the upper bevor and bevor each secured at their right sides by spring-catches with push-button releases (the spring for the bevor replaced), and two gorget-plates front and rear (associated), the main edges of the helmet formed with partly roped inward turns and partial turns accompanied by recessed borders, and the skull decorated to either side of its comb with a pair of similar recessed bands converging just above the nape (pitted and worn overall), 28.0 cm

Provenance

Joe Kindig Jr. (1898-1971), thence by descent

The helmet owes its survival to having been suspended over an English tomb as part of an heraldic funerary achievement. Similar helmets can be seem in the churches of Whaddon, Buckinghamshire; Netherbury, Dorsetshire; Pembury, Kent, and Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire. See Cripps-Day 1922, pp. 164-5, 174, 199-200, 263 & 266, figs 1597, 1608, 1661 & 1792).

Part proceeds to benefit the Acquisition Fund of the Arms and Armor department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.