Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/181

 subject has not caused the artist-armourer to indicate subjects supposed to be in the middle distance merely in flat chasing, but has stimulated him to render it in relief, necessitating the ultra embossing of the figures, etc., in the fore-*ground. To get a better idea of what we mean, the reader should look at that most beautiful helmet (Fig. 1234), formerly in the Spitzer Collection, which in 1834 was purchased by Carrand père in Geneva from a member of the Doria family. On one side of the skull-piece is seen the figure of a boy mounted on a sea-horse. Though this marine monster is modelled with

North Italian, about 1550. Wallace Collection (Laking Catalogue, No. 104)

accurate anatomical knowledge, and is in comparatively high relief, the figure of the boy, who rides it side-saddle fashion, is in almost double relief to it, or as we have put it, is super-imposed upon it. In other words, relief is put upon relief. The crest of this casque is modelled as the complete figure of a scaled mythical fish. Above the umbril is a grotesque mask; while encircling the base of the skull-piece, as though dividing it from the umbril and neck-*guard, is a cabled band modelled in almost full relief. The ear-pieces are hinged, and lack, as is generally the case, the lower scaled plates to which the buckling straps were once attached. It was a tradition in the Doria family that this remarkable helmet was worn by the famous Genoese nobleman, Andrea