Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/258

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or even to his grandfather, Maximilian I. They are of German workmanship, and the present writer thinks that they may possibly have been the work of Hans Grünewalt of Nuremberg; for they bear close resemblance, though they are more elaborate, to the gauntlets on the suit attributed to him and made for Sigismund of Tyrol, which is in the Imperial Armoury, Vienna (vol. i, Fig. 244). The Count de Valencia in describing them in his famous Madrid catalogue, suggests they may be the work of Lorenz Kolman of Augsburg. Doubtless he had some good reason for this attribution; but to us, though we have had no opportunity of examining them, they appear much more likely to have been the work of Hans Grünewalt. Each gauntlet is composed of twenty-seven separate plates; beyond the tracery to which we have referred they are decorated with radiating fluting, and also with bands etched by means of acid.

Fig. 577. Pair of gauntlets

German, about 1460-80

Probably the work of Adrian Treytz of Mühlen

No. 340, Wallace Collection

We have now traced the evolution of hand armour from the end of the XIIth century, when a covering for the hand was first found to be necessary, and when the sleeve of the hauberk was lengthened to meet this necessity,