Close helmet: HEN.M.66-1933

Maker(s)

Production: Unknown (Probably)
Skull maker: Unknown (Probably)

Entities

• Close helmet

Categories

• Armour

Description

Close helmet, for use by a cuirassier, composed of elements of a similar period. Formed of a skull with a visor, an upper bevor and a bevor attached to it by common pivots, and a single gorget-plate front and rear. The skull is formed in two halves joined by a turn to the left along a moderately high medial comb. It is decorated with radiating flutes of V-shaped section. Attached by three rivets at the rear of the skull, just to the right of the comb, is a plume-holder of C-shaped section with a flanged outer edge. The pivots that secure the visor, the upper bevor and the bevor take the form of large round-headed rivets with circular internal washers. The skull is pierced with earlier pivot-holes just below the present pivots. The visor has a stepped, centrally-divided vision-slit. Its brow is decorated with flutes, forming a continuation of those that decorate the skull. Its inward flanged lower edge is pierced with a hole for a missing lifting-peg that was accommodated within a rectangular notch cut in the upper edge of the upper bevor. The prow-shaped upper bevor is pierced at the mouth with a pair of large, circular ventilation-holes, and at each side of the face with nine small circular ventilation-holes arranged in a rosette-formation and linked by radiating incised lines. The medially-ridged bevor has a broad, U-shaped face-opening. It is fitted at the right of the chin and the right of the neck with swivel-hooks that engage pierced studs respectively riveted at the lower edge of the upper bevor and the front edge of the skull. The right rear edge of the bevor is cut with an irregular notch just behind the swivel-hook at the neck. The front and rear gorget-plates, which are respectively riveted to the flanged lower edges of the bevor and skull, are each formed of a single plate embossed to simulate two lames. The lower edge of the front gorget-plate is obtusely-pointed, while that of the rear gorget-plate is rounded.
The main edges of the helmet are decorated with plain inward turns accompanied by a recessed border. The secondary edges are decorated with single incised lines.

Notes

History note: Mr James Stewart Henderson of 'Abbotsford', Downs Road, St Helen's Park, Hastings, Sussex.

Legal notes

J.S. Henderson Bequest

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1933-03-16) by Henderson, James Stewart

Dating

17th Century#
Production date: circa AD 1630

Note

The existence of earlier pivot-holes in the skull, and the poor quality of the fluted decoration at the brow of the visor suggest that the visor, upper bevor and bevor have been adapted to the skull, possibly for funerary use. The gorget-plates, which match one another, must have been added at the same time.

The helmet is painted black over a rusted surface, with its comb, the edges of its visor-slits, the lower edges of its gorget-plates, its plume-holder and its rivets painted turquoise.

The skull probably Flemish; the remainder probably Dutch