Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/228



North Italian, about 1560-70. Wallace Collection (Laking Catalogue, No. 540)

from Milan, and was bequeathed to the British Museum by the late Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (Fig. 1274). Apart from its being a very fine example of the work of Lucio Picinino at his very best period, it is the earliest helmet of the true morion order known to the author; in placing the period of its production in the closing years of the first half of the XVIth century we are in no danger of assigning it too early a date. It is splendidly solid in make, with a brim of sufficient size to balance its well-proportioned comb. In the enrichment of its surface can be seen that broadly executed embossing in low relief which denotes a period in the art of the late Renaissance in which the artist and the armourer still worked in harmony. A great similarity may be observed in the style of this helmet and that of the fine shield in the Wallace Collection, No. 632 (post, Fig. 1299), which, though unsigned, is acknowledged to be one of Picinino's most important works. The design may not actually be Picinino's; but the method of using the gold with which the surface is enriched is certainly his. The various patterns that decorate the drapery effects in the central tent scene on the shield and the principal panels on the skull