Étonnante armure de trois-quarts pour cavalier, entièrement décorée de motifs peints dorés, Savoie; vers 1630. Photo Pierre Bergé & associés

A striking Cuirassier Officer's gold-painted three-quarter armour, Savoy, circa 1630.

Comprising close helmet with rounded skull formed of two halves each with integral neck lame, the base studded with lining rivets on brass rosette washers, pivoted fall formed with hooded guards acutely arched over the eyes, visor cut with a single mouth-like breathe and the upper edges with hemispherical openings for the eyes, pivoted chinpiece, and a single neck lame at the front, breast-plate formed with a low medial ridge, turned edges, and a short basal flange fitted with a pair of small iron plates, these each with a turningpin for attaching alternative detachable skirt lames or tassets, now fitted with a skirt of two lames, the upper lame overlapped by the base of the breast-plate, back-plate fitted with a detachable broad skirt of five lames, the upper lame boxed at the sides and the lower lames each with cusped subsidiary edges, a pair of long tassets each of ten lames, some with turned edges, the subsidiary edges cut with a chevron in the middle, winged poleyns embossed with leaf ornament over the point of the knee and with articulations above and below, a pair of full arm defences, comprising large pauldrons studded with circular patterns of brass-capped rivets front and rear, tubular turners, upper-and lower-cannons, bracelet couters, and complete with a pair of gauntlets with flared cuffs, studded with brass-capped rivets throughout, the entire armour richly decorated with a gold-painted pattern of roped cartouches filled with scrollwork interlaced in arabesques at the root, on a field of scrollwork segmented by roped lines and further arabesques, and the whole painted scheme contrasting against a painted black ground: on a purpose-built costumed mannequin.

H.: 178 cm - Wt.: 15.945 kg. Résultat : 52 000 €

Exhibited: Lisbon, May-October, 1983, XVII Exposição Europeia de arte, ciência ecultura

- Torre de Belem. Catalogue Os Descobrimentos Portugueses e a Europa do Renascimento. Armaria dos Seculos XV a XVII, 1983, No. 71, p.77, illustrated p.78.

Compared to armour with engraved and gilded decoration those with gold-painted patterns are extremely rare. One of the most beautifully decorated was the armour of Margrave Johann Georg von Brandenburg-Jägendorf, made in Augsburg at the beginning of the 17th century, formerly preserved in the Deutsches Historishes Museum, Berlin, now missing since the Second World War.

See MÜLLER, Heinrich, Das Berliner Zeughaus, vom Arsenal zum Museum, 1994, p.223, ill. No. 264.

Pierre Bergé & associés. Mardi 13 décembre à 15h00. Grand Sablon 40 Grote Zavel, Bruxelles. « Le musée fantastique » de Karsten Klingbeil armes et armures anciennes. EMail : contact@pba-auctions.com - Tél. : Paris +33 (0)1 49 49 90 00 - Bruxelles + 32 (0)2 504 80 30