IDENTIFIERS ----------- id: 17707 accession number: HEN.M.1D-1933 DATE AUDIT ---------- created: Saturday 6 August 2011 updated: Thursday 2 September 2021 DESCRIPTIVE DATA ---------------- object type: Pair of short tassets for field use. Each formed of five medially-ridged, upward overlapping lames that narrow slightly to their lower ends. The first lame has a short transverse step at its inner end. The fifth lame has rounded lower corners and an obtusely pointed lower edge. Each tasset has a partial inward turn at its upper and outer edges, and a full turn at its lower and inner edges. The turns at the inner edges of the second to fourth lames are file-roped. The turns at the inner, outer and lower edges are accompanied by a recessed border. The upper edges of the second to fourth lames are decorated at their centres with V-shaped nicks. The lames are connected to one another by modern sliding-rivets with octagonal internal washers at their outer ends, and by modern internal leathers at their centres and outer ends. The leathers are attached by externally-flush rivets. The rivet that attaches the central leather to the fifth lame is the inner of a pair of rivets that straddle the medial ridge. The outer rivet is in each case of round-headed form with an external, pewter, rosette washer. The inner rivet of the left tasset is also fitted with an external, pewter, rosette washer. All three washers are of a different form. Located just to the outside of each of the sliding-rivets on the second to fourth lames is a similar round-headed rivet. Located at the outer ends of the second to fourth lames are pairs of such round-headed rivets, of which the inner ones align with the underlying rivets for the inner internal leathers. The upper edges of the second to fourth lames are bordered by pairs of scored lines that run into the recessed borders. The fifth lame of the right tasset was formerly decorated with a spray of flutes that radiate downwards and outwards from its upper edge to its turned lower edge. The flutes have subsequently been hammered flat. Secured by a round-headed rivet at either end of the first lame of each tasset is a double-ended, tongued, iron buckle. Its loop is rectangular at its upper end, semi-circular at its lower end, and is decorated with simple filed and punched ornament. Both of the loops on the left tasset lack their lower ends. The hasps of the buckles are shaped around the rivets. That of the right outer buckle is decorated around its edge with short, punched, perpendicular lines. The remaining three hasps are plain and crudely made. Part of the composite half-armour HEN.M.1A-E-1933 title: tassets NOTES ----- type: history note value: From the armoury of the Princes Radziwill, Castle of Niescwiez, Poland. To save the armoury from the Bolshevist uprising, the Lithuanian family of Radziwill moved it to their town house in Warsaw. According to the London dealers Fenton and Furnage, the collection was acquired by the Austrian dealers Pollak and Windonitz just before the First World War. Some pieces were sold in Germany, but most were offered for sale at Christie's, London, on 29 June 1926 and 14 June 1927 as the armoury of a 'Russian Prince'. Mr James Stewart Henderson of 'Abbotsford', Downs Road, St Helen's Park, Hastings, Sussex. LICENSING --------- text license status: CC0 image license status: CC-BY-NC-SA OWNERSHIP --------- instutition: The Fitzwilliam Museum department: Applied Arts collection: J.S. Henderson creditline: J.S. Henderson Bequest STABLE URL ---------- url: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/17707 TECHNIQUES ---------- steel, shaped and riveted, with incised, punched and filed decoration, each formed of five medially-ridges, upward overlapping lames that narrow slightly to their lower ends hammering TECHNIQUES ---------- patinating TECHNIQUES ---------- forming CATEGORIES ------ category: armour DATING ------ creation date: 1800 - 1900 creation date earliest: 1800 creation date latest: 1900 culture: 19th Century CREATORS -------- maker: Unknown