Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/176

 famous Brocas sale held in 1834, lot 366 is thus described: "Another [helmet] equally superb, with the master's name and date on the chin piece: ." It then sold for £29 8s.—its present value would probably be three hundred times that sum. Both the mistakes which occur in the sale catalogue of 1834 are susceptible of explanation. First as to the mention of a chin-piece. The casque never possessed a chin-piece; but to the uninitiated, the plate that we have described—fitting beneath the umbril—having once become detached in the centre would drop on to its side hinges, and so would assume the appearance of a chin-piece. Secondly, as to the inscription. This through a little rust oxidization has in one place somewhat perished so that the Roman numeral in  was read as the numeral, making it. We may add that the subsequent history of this beautiful head-piece from its appearance in the Brocas sale, and its purchase by the Duc de Luynes, down to about the year 1900, is involved in obscurity.

Dr. Bashford Dean, in "The Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 1916, writing on the possible original ownership of Mr. Morgan's casque, goes on to say:

"It was made within the years when Philip de Negroli was receiving commissions from the Emperor; and it is hardly to be supposed that he would produce at the same time and for a lesser personage a casque more elaborate and costly. Certain it is that, from the year 1533, when he commenced to fill the orders of Charles V, all of his extant signed pieces, with the exception of Mr. Morgan's casque, remain as part of the imperial heritage. But if the casque belonged to this court, why have we no record of so important a piece? Why was it not figured in the late XVIth century catalogue of the collection, or mentioned in the archives of the Royal Armoury? And if it did belong to the Emperor, how could such a specimen have been abstracted with impunity—even at a time when many inconspicuous pieces disappeared?

"To whom, then, did the present casque belong? Clearly, to a personage of the very highest rank, and one who had the artistic taste to prize such a possession. May it not have been Francis I? He was certainly the rival of the Emperor in many ways: he was even his superior as a patron of artistic work, and he was certainly not his second as a lover of beautiful armour. We know, in point of fact, that the King of France was much impressed with the work of Philip and the brothers de Negroli, and we recall most interestingly that he was the ruling duke of Milan at the time when Negroli