Exceptionnelle armure de bataille en acier bleui entièrement décorées de bandes gravées à l'eau-forte et dorées, signée POMPE et attribuée à l'atelier de Pompeo della Cesa, Italie du Nord vers 1585-1595. Photo Pierre Bergé & associés

An exceptional North Italian etched blued and gilt full armour for the field, signed POMPE and attributed to the workshop of Pompeo della Cesa, circa 1585-1595.

The entire armour etched with a series of bands filled with complex designs of trophies-of-war involving fantastic beasts, alternating with bands of interlaced strapwork terminating in foliage and punctuated by ovals framing Classical warriors, figures from Roman mythology, warriors in 16th century dress, and small grotesques, and the entire scheme arranged on a framework of blued vacant bands, the armour comprising close helmet with one-piece skull rising to a cable comb, pierced with circular arrangements of ventilation holes behind the ears, the visor and the upper-and lower-bevors pivoting at common points, the visor with slotted sights and later lifting-peg, the upper-bevor pierced with a circular arrangement of small breathes on the right and closed by a hook- and eye-catch, the lowerbevor fitted with later pivoting arm supporting the upper-bevor, fitted with neck-guard of three lames front and rear, the subsidiary edges with incised roping, and the outer edges turned and roped, gorget of one plate front and rear pivoting on a rivet (the upper three lames missing front and rear), breast-plate formed with medial ridge drawn down to a blunt point, out turned at the base, roped over a turned raised flange below the neck, fitted with a pair of moveable arm-gussets, the etched designs centering below the neck on a large oval supported by a pair of angels, filled with the allegorical figure of Victory (or Fame) and the frame of the oval signed POMPE, fitted with folding lance-rest etched en suite and skirt lame carrying a later pair of short tassets each of six lames, back-plate, the etched designs centering on an oval filled with a Roman goddess, possibly Juno, a pair of symmetrical arm defences, including large pauldrons, the left pauldron pierced for fitting an exchange piece, the lower lame of each attached to the turner by a strap and turning-pin, tubular vambraces and bracelet couters, the left couter decorated with a mounted Knight and the right couter decorated with a mounted Turk, a later pair of gauntlets, a pair of cuisses each of five lames and fitted with poleyns each of six articulations, the lower lames of the cuisses and the principal lames of the poleyns each decorated with differing classical warrior ovals and the poleyns formed with small kidney-shaped wings, a pair of greaves each with a single articulation at the ankle and hinged inner-plate covering the outer portion of the calf, decorated with differing warrior ovals, and fitted with later mail sabatons and toe-caps en suite with the armour: on a purpose-built fabric-covered mannequin with sculpted mask.

H.: 176 cm - Wt. without greaves and sabatons: 17.660 kg. Estimation: 250 000 / 300 000 €. Résultat : 230 000 €

Provenance: Bachereau, Paris, 1905.

The Lord Astor of Hever. Sotheby's, The Hever Castle Collection, vol. I, Arms and Armour, 5th May 1983, lot 48, sold £50,600.

Barry H. Trupin, Long Island, New York. The Trupin Family Trust.

Exhibited: Italian Armor for Princely Courts, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1986, Leonid TARASSUK curator, catalogue pp. 20-21.

During the last quarter of the 16th century Northern Italy developed its taste for profusely decorated armours with the emphasis on densely etched designs from head to toe. The most common technique was etching on a stippled ground that was either blackened or gilded. The decoration was mainly a combination of textile patterns with knotted braids and embroidered arabesques (i motivi a tessuto), palms and branches, and war trophies involving elements of armour. The decorative scheme was usually arranged in bands with medallions of various sizes engraved with an allegorical figure, a mythological hero, or a dynastic emblem.

The most famous workshop of its time was directed by Pompeo della Cesa, armourer to the Spanish court in Milan. Located in the Sforzesco castle, the workshop was widely renowned and was providing for prestigious patrons such as Philip II, King of Spain and Duke of Milan, Emanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, Vincent Gonzaga, Duke of Mantova, and Francis I de Medici, Grand-duke of Tuscany.

Manuscript evidence records Pompeo as working in 1571 (a letter to Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoy). The last recorded work is the armour intended for the Russian Tzar Dimitri II (1582-1606), called "The False Dimitri" (r. 1605-06). The cuirass of this armour is preserved in The Art Institute of Chicago (1982.2430 a-b) and the gorget, the arm defences and the tassets are preserved in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Armours were signed POMPEO, or alternatively POMPE or POMP at the top of the breast-plate in the frame of the main medallion or in a cartouche. Other North Italian decorators of armours copied this particular style almost immediately.

Bruno Thomas and Ortwin Gamber, in their article "L'arte Milanese dell'armatura", published a descriptive list of 24 works signed by Pompeo, these are preserved for the most part in museums. John Hayward, in the auction catalogue of the collection of Lord Astor of Hever, gave the present armour (then lot 48) as the 25th recorded work by Pompeo della Cesa. A.V.B. Norman, in his European Arms and Armour Supplement to the Wallace Collection Catalogues, 1986, p. 111, confirms that the Hever armour is a work by Pompeo della Cesa; Leonid Tarassuk, in the catalogue of the Chicago exhibition also makes this confirmation. In the catalogue of the Poldi-Pezzoli collection Lionello G. Boccia and José A. Godoy make the positive comparison between the armour of The Lord Astor of Hever (the present armour) and the close helmet No.32 in the catalogue (n. inv. 2592), which was probably made for Renato Borromeo, circa 1585-1590.

The armour by Pompeo preserved in the Higgins Armory Museum (JWHA 425), Worcester, Massachusetts, includes several restorations and the reconstruction of missing parts (back-plate, rear skirt, sabatons, fingers of the gauntlets, etc.). In an article published in 1988, the then curator, Walter J. Karcheski notes that the quality of the restorations on this armour compares with the works that one Giuseppe Gaggini made in 1909 on the Pompeo armour preserved in the Poldi- Pezzoli collection, Milan (Inv. No.342).

The most recent work by this armourer to come to the market was a half-armour with cabasset, at Galerie Fisher, auction 405, September 2009, lot 303, sold for CHF 798,000 ( 532,000 or $ 725,455), from the von Schulthess collection (armour n°13 in the Thomas & Gamber list).

See, TARASSUK, Leonid, Italian Armor for Princely court, 1986, pp. 21-22, No. 13. Also see, KARCHESKI, Walter J., An Armour by Pompeo della Cesa, in the Higgins Armory Museum,Worcester, in The Journal of the Arms & Armour Society (London), vol. XII, No. 6, September 1988, pp. 394-401. BOCCIA, Lionello G. & GODOY, José A., Museo Poldi- Pezzoli, Armeria I, 1985, pp. 87-88, ill. 42-44, pp.196-197.

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