Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/159



A copy of one in the Armoury of Turin. Made in Germany about 1880

others when they show any attempt at originality of design, either as regards form or decoration, fail deplorably (Figs. 1554, a and b). It is much to be regretted that we are unable to assign these forgeries to their respective makers, and have to be content with surmising the country of their provenance. While these plausible imitations of enriched armour were being made, chiefly in Italy, many artificers of France and of Germany devoted their time to working on individual armaments of an earlier date. Look at the tilting helmet formerly in the collection of Sir Noël Paton, and now in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh. Apart from its defects of form this modern specimen is as good, or rather as deceptive, as could be made. It has a splendid black-brown surface cleverly rusted and scaled in places; while the brass ailette holes are so cleverly inserted that they appear never to have been disturbed. It is, nevertheless, a forgery, and according to the Baron de Cosson, a Viennese forgery of about 1860 (Fig. 1555). In our next illustrations (Figs. 1556, a and b) two admirable forgeries are represented, a leg-piece purporting to be mid-XVth century, and a helmet purporting to be Norman. Both, we reckon, are of French make and of comparatively recent date. Our next picture (Fig. 1557) shows a supposed XIVth century helm, now in the Zeughaus, Berlin, which the curators acknowledge to be a German forgery; while its immediate successor (Fig. 1558) represents a fine copy of a late XVth century breastplate strangely like that