Bolton illustrates it so as to show its outside parchment in position and curled back from the right side as with age, but representing clearly on the left side the heraldic quarterings of John of Gaunt. Bolton's book was published in 1610; so up to that date we can be sure that it was still in a very fair state of preservation. Sandford's complete view of the John of Gaunt tomb published in 1707, which reproduces an illustration engraved in 1664, shows the shield completed, as we have said, in imagination, the lance and the cap of maintenance hanging beside it; while Hollar in Sir William Dugdale's work shows nothing but the curious sectioned foundation of the shield. So this outside covering must have been lost but shortly after the appearance of Bolton's woodcut.
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Fig. 593. Shield of painted wood
Early XVth century. Collection: Signor S. Bardini
Of this family of shield, though a later form of the type, are two fine examples from the collection already mentioned of Signor S. Bardini, which we now illustrate (Figs. 591 and 592). They are of wood covered with parchment and gesso—each about 25 inches high by 20 inches wide—and are splendidly enriched with heraldic devices in the highest relief. Though they appear to be Florentine of the middle of the XVth century, they represent sufficiently well the group to which the John of Gaunt shield must have belonged. In the same collection is another shield which though somewhat differently curved and having a pointed apex, also shows the suggestion of "la bouche de la lance." This also is Italian, of somewhat earlier date, coming possibly within the first half of the century (Fig. 593). It is of soft wood made slightly convex to the body and covered with gesso; while on its face has been painted a spirited heraldic eagle. Very clearly visible are the iron rosette-headed rivets that retained the arm loops in position. These are set across the shield so that when carried it was almost at right angles to the wearer. In the bequest of the late Mr. W. Burges to the British Museum is a shield made of the same medium, though more solidly fashioned than those we have just dealt with (Fig. 594). Here the development of the
