Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/348

 burnished bright, but of a lustrous black finish, serving as a background for the bands and contours of gold and silver damascened work, which, crossing the principal plates in a horizontal direction, still constitute their most delicate ornamentation. It can also be seen from the Inventario that the embossed masks, etc., which are now burnished brilliantly bright, appear to have been originally gilt. In a private collection in England are two of the lesser auxiliary elbow-cops of this harness (Fig. 1063); they were bought at the 1839 sale to which we have referred. So it may be taken for granted that they were taken from the Royal Spanish Armoury about that time; as were also probably at least two of the pieces now missing from the suit itself. The elbow-cops, like the suit, have now a brightened surface; but the damascening, an unusual ornamentation to apply to the Negroli plate, is in pristine condition round the borders.

In an English private collection

As we have said, two figures and a panoply display the suit as it exists to-day in Madrid (A 139 to A 146). Of these, we illustrate A 139 (Fig. 1064). It comprises a breast- and backplate with wide laminated gussets, and a splinted under plate and single tace, to which are attached the tassets of seven plates, which for convenience could, when the wearer was mounted, be shortened at the second lame. In the top centre of the breastplate there must originally have been an oval applied plaque containing the figure of the Virgin, as we find on nearly all suits worn by the Emperor after the year 1531; but this has been replaced by one of metal crudely worked. A similar act of vandalism on the backplate may be noted, the plaque missing from which