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Lot Essay
These pieces belong to a well-known group of late 15th-/early 16th- century armours for the form of tournament known in Germany as the Gestech and in England as the Joust Royal, made for the Habsburg-Burgundian Court at Brussels. A number, possibly including this vambrace and gauntlet, are depicted in views of the interior of the Arsenal at Brussels incorporated in several allegorical paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625), notably, Touch in a set of paintings representing the Five Senses in the Prado, Madrid, and Venus at the Forge of Vulcan, sold in these Rooms on 24 March 1972, lot 72 (illustrated in the catalogue). Armours of this type were not, however, confined to the Habsburg Court, and are illustrated, for example, in the well-known English manuscript life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in the British Library, known as the Warwick Pageant, which dates from circa 1483-90 (plate XXX), while several helms of the distinctive form found with it survive among funerary-achievements in English churches: among them one in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, struck with the same armourer's mark. This mark, which was once incorrectly ascribed to the 17th-century armourer Jacques Voys (Vois) of Brussels, is also recorded on the following pieces: two vambraces of similar design to the present one, also originally in the Arsenal at Brussels, and now respectively in the Musée Royal de l'Armée et d'Histoire Militaire, Brussels (inv. no. II. 40) and the Czartoryski Collection, Cracow, of which the latter retains the ring on the vambrace for the attachment of a supporting link to the breast-plate of the armour; a tournament-vambrace for the right arm (polder-mitten) in the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove (Scott Collection); an armour of King Philip I ("The Handsome") of Spain; a sallet and a shaffron in the Real Armería, Madrid; the breast-plate of a composite armour in the Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer, Vienna; and a sallet in the Wallace Collection
The armourer who used the crowned orb and cross mark has never been identified with certainty, though he was clearly one of those who worked for the Habsburg-Burgundian Court at Brussels in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The late A.V.B. Norman, in his Supplement to the Wallace Collection European arms and armour catalogue (p. 1), suggested he was probably the armourer Martin Rondelle referred to in the discussion of lot 79 in the present sale, who worked not only for the English Paston family, but was also armourer to the Bastard of Burgundy and the future Emperor Maximilian I. The study of the subject which Mr. Norman was preparing at the time of his death in 1998 has never been published, so the evidence on which he based his identification of the mark has never been made public. In its absence, the identification as Rondelle's of the 'ro' mark referred to in the discussion of lot 79 seems more probable
See Real Armería, Madrid (inv. nos. A11, D16, A15)
Warwick Pageant, plate XXX
Scott Collection, vol. I, no. 15
Squilbeck, pp. 247, 255-61
Zygulski, passim
Tower Armouries 1960, cat. no. 1
Blair 1961
Wallace Collection (inv. no. A20)
Gaier, pp. 122-4, fig. 2
Borg, p. 319, plate LXVII
Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer (inv. no. A110)
Ortiz, cat. no. 17
Blair 1998, pp. 293-7, and fig. 7
Blair 1999, passim
See also lot 1
The armourer who used the crowned orb and cross mark has never been identified with certainty, though he was clearly one of those who worked for the Habsburg-Burgundian Court at Brussels in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The late A.V.B. Norman, in his Supplement to the Wallace Collection European arms and armour catalogue (p. 1), suggested he was probably the armourer Martin Rondelle referred to in the discussion of lot 79 in the present sale, who worked not only for the English Paston family, but was also armourer to the Bastard of Burgundy and the future Emperor Maximilian I. The study of the subject which Mr. Norman was preparing at the time of his death in 1998 has never been published, so the evidence on which he based his identification of the mark has never been made public. In its absence, the identification as Rondelle's of the 'ro' mark referred to in the discussion of lot 79 seems more probable
See Real Armería, Madrid (inv. nos. A11, D16, A15)
Warwick Pageant, plate XXX
Scott Collection, vol. I, no. 15
Squilbeck, pp. 247, 255-61
Zygulski, passim
Tower Armouries 1960, cat. no. 1
Blair 1961
Wallace Collection (inv. no. A20)
Gaier, pp. 122-4, fig. 2
Borg, p. 319, plate LXVII
Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer (inv. no. A110)
Ortiz, cat. no. 17
Blair 1998, pp. 293-7, and fig. 7
Blair 1999, passim
See also lot 1