‡ A COMPOSITE NORTH ITALIAN CAP-A-PIE ARMOUR WITH ETCHED DECORATION, LATE 16TH CENTURY, THE BACKPLATE SIGNED BY THE MASTER ‘P’ comprising morion with rounded one-piece crown rising to a high roped medial comb, and 'swept' integral brim rising to an acute point front (restored) and rear, the latter fitted with an associated etched and gilt copper alloy plume-holder, the interior with an early padded maroon velvet lining interspersed with small tassels; collar of three plates front and rear (the upper two of the front, and the uppermost and lowermost of the rear restored); breastplate formed of a main plate of deep 'peascod' fashion (the metal of its lower right showing internal delamination), embossed with a volute at each side of the chest, fitted at its arm-openings with moveable gussets, flanged outwards at its lower edge (the centre of the flange patched) and fitted with a fauld of two lames (the lowest patched at its left end) and a pair of pendent tassets each of nine lames (the left restored); well matched backplate embossed en suite, fitted with shoulder-straps and a belt; a pair of large symmetrical pauldrons, each formed of seven lames of which the third is in each case patched and the lowest four (restored) extend inwards only to the armpit; a pair of fully articulated tubular vambraces each fitted at its upper end with a turner of two lames and at its elbow with a winged bracelet couter of three lames; two gauntlets almost forming a pair, each formed of a flared and pointed tubular cuff (holed for display), four and five metacarpal-plates respectively, a shaped knuckle-plate (the right restored), later thumb-plate and finger-scales; the main edges of the armour formed almost throughout with file-roped inward turns, and its surfaces decorated with etching on a stippled and blackened ground (areas of wear), that of the morion consisting of a large cartouche at each side of the skull filled with the figure of Fortune enclosed by the inscription ‘Semper Fortuna Docet’ and ‘Semper Fortuna Iuna’ respectively, the comb with a central cartouche filled with a coat-of-arms, two moor’s heads addorsed above a further head and a bar between charged with three mullets, flanked by mythical beasts and birds on one face and further beasts and putto on the other, and that of the remainder of the armour consisting of bands and borders of trophies of arms generally enclosed by narrow bands of cabling and enclosing in the interspaces and volutes of the fronts and rears of the pauldrons, classical busts, and involving at the neck-opening of the backplate the device of a cross and orb, the latter charged with the letter ‘P’, and a pair of modern cuisses each of three lames, fitted at their lower ends with winged poleyns of five lames, hinged tubular greaves and articulated sabatons of eight lames; all on a wooden stand Provenance Russel J. Char