Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/104

 of this suit bears a remarkable likeness to that on the armour of Lord Compton (Fig. 1146).

We terminate our already long survey of the work of this school by representing, simply for purposes of comparison with those suits just illustrated, that suit in the Imperial Armoury of Vienna which Herr Boeheim describes as being in all probability the work of Jacob Topf (Fig. 1154). It is a full parade harness, the surface bright with broad bands which are ornamented with engraving and gilding and encrusted with small silver pearls. Among the interspersed designs can be seen figures clad as foot soldiers. A medallion on the right cuisse thigh bears the date 1582. We can only surmise as to who was the original owner of this suit. The suit was removed from the Arsenal of the Court of Graz to Vienna. It can be proved that Topf worked for the Court of Graz; so the theory that the armour belonged to Archduke Carl von Steiermark is at least plausible. Both this suit and a second harness in the Imperial Armoury of Vienna are considered by the Vienna authorities to be Jacob Topf's work. Both bear little or no likeness to the suits we have described and illustrated as the work of the Greenwich School, save perhaps in the shape and construction of the lower part of the iambs, and in the formation of the sollerets.