Gorget
Culture
Swiss
, perhaps from Solothurn
Date1560–1600
Mediumsteel and leather
Dimensions15 × 48 × 30 cm (5 7/8 × 18 7/8 × 11 13/16 in.), 3 lb 2 oz (weight)
ClassificationsArms and Armor
MarkingsSolothurn (?) arsenal-mark on anterior left edge of frontplate of collar. The grid-like mark found on the collar's frontplate, and atop the vambraces is possibly the control mark of Solothurn. See photo in digital file.
Credit LineThe John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection
Object number2014.1152.2
DescriptionOf the “Almain”-collar form. Mainplates front and rear, pivoted at the left and secured at the right by a keyhole-shaped slot snapping over a modern, domed peg. The front plate is fashioned with a full-length medial ridge and is stamped with what may be the Solothurn arsenal mark at the left of this near the lower edge. The neck defense consists of two lames front and rear, hinged at the left and secured on the upper lame with its inwardly turned and file-roped edge, by a hole snapping over a peg. The defense articulates on three internal leathers each, front and rear.
The side edges of the rear plates of the collar are attached to short, cap-like spaulders of two lames each; the terminal lame of these has a recurved lower edge which follows the broadening of the lame toward the rear, and is finished with a file roped edge turned inwardly over a thin wire core. The lames are attached by means of central and posterior (lacking) leathers and sliding rivets at the rear. The anterior edge of the left is leathered to the front plates, and the right spaulder is secured by a metal loop on a leather tab, the loop passing through a rectangular slot on the front plate, and engaged by a pivot hook (associated?) fixed there. Near the side edges of the backplate are spring-loaded posts for attachment of pauldrons.
Cf. this collar to II. 1 (possibly wrong #) in the Tower, see Blair, fig. 150; Gamber, 72b, 88.
ProvenanceSir Guy F. Laking (England - pre-1907) Clarence H. Mackay (Roslyn, L.I.) Jacques Seligmann & Co., Inc. Bought by the Armory from the estate of Clarence Mackay through Jacques Seligman and Co., Inc. (NYC) on 9 November 1940 (their A-48) Collection transfer from Higgins Armory, January 2014.
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