Left Tasset

Artist workshops of Wolf and Peter von Speyer , or (Germany)

Artist Wolf Peppinghorn (Saxony, Germany)

Dateabout 1590–1600

MediumSteel, iron, leather and black paint

Dimensions26 × 28 × 10 cm (10 1/4 × 11 × 3 15/16 in.), 2 lb, 9 oz (weight)

ClassificationsArms and Armor

Credit LineThe John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection

Terms

Object number2014.1154.9

DescriptionThe tassets are a symmetrical pair, each of oblong, laminated form, with rounded basal corners. Each is of five deep lames, overlapping upwards, curved to the body, with a full-length low medial ridge. The lames work on a pair of internal leathers and sliding-rivets near the straight outer ends. Except for the terminal lame all lames are of more-or-less equal depth over their lengths and to one another. The inner end of the upper two lames is slightly curved, producing a slight curve to the fork. Again with the exception of the lower lame, the edges are hollow-flanged and roped, with a wide, shallow recessed border.

The basal lame is deep, with rounded corners, and deepens further as it curves down toward mid-length. Its edge is inwardly turned and roped, and cut with four deep V-shaped notches at mid-point. The edge is bordered by a wide, raised band, filled with domed lining-rivets, and a narrow, deeply recessed band framed on its inner edge by a raised ridge. This motif rises to a sharp medial cusp, in a manner reminiscent of the so-called "Brunswick" school.

The top lame is fitted with a riveted set of three double, tongued buckles, each decoratively cut and mounted in lobated shanks. The outermost of the right tasset is not the same as the others, but is old, and has been in place for a long time.

The tassets have traces of longitudinal silvered bands on the medial lines. The bevelled upper edges of the 4 lower lames may once have been left bright.
ProvenanceDresden "Rüstkammer" Prince Ernst Heinrich of Saxony (to 1925) Clarence H. Mackay (Roslyn, L.I.) (his A-31). Purchased by the Armory on 27 July 1939 at Mackay sale, Christie's (London), lot 54 (with shaffron HAM# 2550). Collection transfer from Higgins Armory, January 2014.

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