Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/208

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Fig. 971. Gilded bronze rowel spur

Enamelled with chequering of black and white. Late XIVth century. Collection: Author

Fig. 971a.

The companion spur to that illustrated in Fig. 971 The Riggs Collection, Metropolitan Museum, New York

near Paris. The other, after the lapse of some years, was put up to auction, together with the remaining portion of the same property, at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, and was purchased by M. Orville, a Parisian collector of the 'sixties. Mr. Riggs made constant overtures to obtain the fellow to his spur; but considering the price asked for it to be too high, never acquired it; and M. Orville died with the spur still in his possession. The executors offered the spur to Mr. Riggs, knowing his desire to re-marry the pair; but he, hardly realizing autres temps autres mœurs as regards the monetary value of objects of art generally, still refused to make what he thought an unreasonable bid, with the result that the spurs are still parted, the author becoming the owner