Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/267

 Next we may mention the large series of targets of wood covered with leather which can be found in most public and many private collections. The example we illustrate (Fig..

is regrettable that the only pageant shield signed by the great German armourer, Desiderius Kolman, still in existence to record his glory as a worker in embossed armour, should have quitted his hands in an unfinished condition. This fact we note in the absence from the shield of the rivet holesby which the lining could be attached and by which the indispensable arm loop could be fastened (Fig. ). It was doubtless the intention of Desiderius Kolman that this shield should bear witness to his work as an embosser of metal. He introduces in the border ornaments a series of bear, wild boar, stag-hunting, and bull-baiting scenes. The whole design seems intended to suggest an allegory of his own triumph over his Italian competitors, he himself being represented in the form of a bull which is vanquishing a huntsman on whose shield is inscribed the name, a direct reference, of course, to the famous Milanese armourers. His superiority in this case over the Milanese school existed, however, only in his own imagination; for the confused and elaborated