Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/334



Belonging to the breastplate, Fig. 1057

elaborated by birds perched on the branches. Round the margin, at the summit, where the gorget meets the breastplate, is a broad band ornamented with a cabling. The roped laminated gussets and the space immediately below the roped turnover at the top of the breastplate is deeply but somewhat more coarsely etched with a frieze of tritons and sea-nymphs on a smaller scale than the remainder of the decoration. The breastplate is now polished to a brightened surface; but in its original state it was doubtless gilded, russeted, or blued, similar ornamentation being visible on the Henri II suit (see Fig. 1090). Nothing is known of its provenance prior to its coming into the possession of Hollingsworth Magniac. Needless to say, however, a history was invented for it, the story being that it was the breastplate of the