Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/213

shield with the arms of Aragon quartered with those of Sicily. A portion of the burr plate of this same saddle was formerly in the collection of M. Sigismund Bardac of Paris, and subsequently passed into that of the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan. Both of the fine ivory saddle plates, now in the Louvre, before passing into the Spitzer Collection were in the possession of the famous mid-XIXth century musician and antiquary, Strauss. We will next turn to that historical saddle preserved in the Imperial Armoury, Vienna, which dates from the third quarter of the XIVth century, the saddle of Wenzel I, King of the Romans (Fig. 977). Though the figure subjects represented upon it and the inscriptions are of the greatest interest, the ornament employed in its decoration is a little stunted and meagre if compared with the beautiful Gothic leafage and figures which are depicted on the example now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. This New York saddle, which came from the collection of the Duc de Dino, is a splendid specimen of its particular art; indeed, so fine is it that though it bears an amatory dialogue in Old German characters engraved on the ribands that intertwine the male and female figures, which are carved in low relief, and so would seem to have been made for the German market, we feel quite safe in maintaining that the north of Italy was its provenance. This saddle, which is of late XIVth century manufacture, came from the collection of Herr Miller Aichholtz of Vienna, who purchased it from a castle in Hungary (Fig. 978).

Fig. 979. Bone-covered saddle

Italian, early XVth century. Metropolitan Museum, New York

When one arrives at the XVth century one still finds the same type of saddle in use on ceremonial occasions. The most elaborate example