Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/124

 suit in the Imperial Armoury of Vienna, supposed to be the work of Lorenz Kolman, and formerly supposed to have belonged to Albert Achilles, Duke of Brandenburg, is an excellent example of this grotesque style of armour. A helmet of the salade order appears on it that in general appearance suggests the head of some harpy of mythology. Yet the workmanship is of the finest, and so cleverly has the element of the grotesque been rendered, that it has proved not detrimental but rather advantageous to the helmet's protective properties.

German, Nuremberg, about 1520. From the Bernal Collection. Tower of London, Class IV, No. 29

As the result of one of the very few judicious purchases made by the authorities in the XIXth century the Tower Armoury possesses a very fine close helmet of the fluted Maximilian order, an example purchased in 1855 at the famous Bernal Sale (Lot 2698) for £53. Here the outer visor is formed as an aquiline-nosed face with fierce upcurled moustachios. This visor is attached above a second open-barred visor on side pivots which have a hinge and pin arrangement, in the manner of the visors of the XVth