Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/269



Showing armour made under the influence of the Missaglia school. From a drawing by Pisano Pisanello. Musée de Louvre

Showing armour made under the influence of Tomaso da Missaglia, from a drawing. Brera, Milan

production under Italian influence. Dare we put forward a rather wild theory and suggest that the suit represented is that to which we shall refer later (see page 212) as having been sent by the famous armourers, the Treytz of Mühlen, to the King of Scotland (James III) in 1460? Surely there is nothing unlikely in the idea that, when Van der Goes painted this picture in 1476 he should, at the King's special command, have depicted this particular harness; since such a complete and fine suit of armour must have been a treasured royal possession in the primitively armed Scottish court. The suit shown might certainly be as early as 1460. Our suggestion is of course highly speculative, made the more so by the very Italian character of the armour represented. Yet, as we have already said, it is impossible to be guided by form alone in assigning nationality, as proof of which look at the vambrace, elbow-cop, and reinforcing coudes (Fig. 236) in the collection of Sir Edward Barry, which