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Reference Image - Not for Reproduction
Falling Buffe of Field Armor, from a Garniture, probably made for Ludwig Ungnad von Weissenwolf auf Sunegg
Reference Image - Not for Reproduction
Image © Worcester Art Museum, all rights reserved.

Falling Buffe of Field Armor, from a Garniture, probably made for Ludwig Ungnad von Weissenwolf auf Sunegg

Artist (German, Augsburg, 1513–1579)
Artist (Southern Germany, Augsburg, about 1525 – 1603)
Dateabout 1552
Mediumsteel with embossed, etched, blackened and gilded decoration, with modern brass, velvet, leather and steel
Dimensions14.5 × 17 × 12 cm (5 11/16 × 6 11/16 × 4 3/4 in.), 8 lb, 9 oz (weight with helmet)
ClassificationsArms and Armor
MarkingsAll major components are internally marked with HAM accession number in black on a white fiield. Both vambraces have the inner end of the couter mainlame and that above marked with a single v-shaped nick. The left vambrace (only) has the inner ends of the laminations at the bend of the arm marked with small v-shaped nicks- 1 in each of the seven lowest lames and 5 in each of the 12th through 17th.
Credit LineThe John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection
Object number2014.74.2
DescriptionAs shown in earlier photographs, the helmet was fitted with a riveted falling-buffe of three plates. These are slightly rounded outward with a medial ridge and curved to the face. The top plate has an outwardly flanged, inwardly turned roped upper edge. All plates are riveted together near the straight-cut ends with domed, brass-capped rivets having a molded basal band, fitted into petalled brass rosettes; these are all of later date. The basal lame is slightly embossed to accommodate the release button of a visor-catch within. The plates are asymmetrically pierced with rectangular vertical breaths on the right (top to bottom 6,6,5) and circular groups of seven holes each (ibid. 3,3,2) on the left face. The plates, and the buffe proper, may be lowered via spring-catches on the right side. There is a curious protuberance on the right side of the lowest plate.
ProvenancePer Stephen V. Grancsay in the Armory's 1961 catalogue, this armor was inherited from the Sachsen-Altenburg line by the Schwarzburg-Sondershauser in or after 1869. Ex collection, the Duke of Altenburg (Schloss Altenburg, Thuringia, Germany); Prince Schwarzburg-Sondershausen; Clarence H. Mackay (Harbor Hill, Roslyn, L.I., NY). Purchased by Museum on April 1, 1940 from Jacques Seligmann & Co. (NYC), agents for the estate of Clarence H. Mackay, their no. A-20-110. Collection transfer from Higgins Armory, January 2014.
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