Right Gauntlet

Culture Northern Italian , Milan

Date1560–1570

Mediumsteel (once blued) with gilding, brass, and iron with modern leather

Dimensions24 × 12.5 cm (9 7/16 × 4 15/16 in.), 14 oz (weight)

ClassificationsArms and Armor

Credit LineThe John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection

Terms

Object number2014.12.13

DescriptionThese are an identical pair. Each consists of a one-piece, flared pointed cuff which is riveted closed along the inner face. The top edge is inwardly turned over a wire core, then chisel-roped and gilded. The opening arches to a medial point on the outer face which is embossed with a low ridge, etched with a tapering trophied band that extends to the knuckle-plate below. The opening is bordered by a broad shallow sunken band, etched with trophies and filled with lining-rivets (seven on the right, eight on the left gauntlet). This is in turn brodered below by a low embossed rib etched with roping, within a frame of a pair of narrow, raised lines. The cuff tapers at the sides and is boxed at the inside of the wrist, with a hollow, inward-turned edge at the opening. The outer side is elliptically embossed for the wrist-bone, opposite which is the iron rivet at the base of the now-lost thumb defense.

Riveted to the cuff edge is a metacarpal defense of five narrow lames, squared at the ends, and curving down to the medial ridge where each is marked with a deep V-shaped nick. Each lame is bluntly cusped at the rivets, and transversely etched on the top edge with guilloche within a frame of narrow, raised lines. Attached to the lowest lame is a boxish knuckle-plate, embossed with a transverse, rope-etched rib between two pair of narrow etched lines. The lower edge is faceted at the fingers and scallop-cut. At the straight-cut sides the plate is tendril-etched, and has trophied groups at the base of the fingers. The finger-scales are lost.
ProvenanceEarls of Pembroke and Montgomery (Wilton House, Wiltshire, England) to 14 June 1923 Joseph Duveen, their no. 28637. Purchased by John W. Higgins on 18 January 1928. Given to the Armory on 21 March 1928. Collection tarnsfer from Higgins Armory, January 2014.

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