circular palettes had disappeared from the Armoury. The last five pieces, until early in 1914, were to be seen in the Musée d'Artillerie of Paris, before which they figured in the respective collections of Lepage, of Nolivos, of Debruge-Duménil, and of Soltikoff, from the last named of whom Napoleon III acquired them in 1861 for his Armoury at Pierrefonds. By a decree dated 11 January 1914, the French Government had the generosity to restore these pieces to the Royal Armoury of Madrid, in order that they might be placed with the suit to which they belong.
The decoration on this Kolman-Sigman suit consists of wide vertical bands embossed in low relief with all those classical motifs which the gold-*smith of the Italian Renaissance delighted to borrow. The German rendering of the ornament is hardly apparent, and even were it so, it would be compensated for by the very high quality of the workmanship. These wide bands are bordered with beautiful acanthus foliage incrusted with gold, which is contained within a narrow border edged with a duplicated trefoil ornament. The entire groundwork of the suit is of a fine blue-black colour. Gilding and silver plating sparingly enrich the embossed bands. The whole suit, indeed, is a monument of admirable taste and worthy even of the Negrolis, to rival whose masterpieces was, as we have said, the main stimulus to its production. It may, of course, have been Desiderius Kolman's taste alone that was responsible for the dignified simplicity of its outline and for the restraint of its enrichment; but we fancy that in the details of its embossed bands we see the hand of someone accustomed to work upon a surface smaller than that of a suit of armour. It is known that King Philip II himself provided drawings for his armour; so possibly the general scheme of Italian Renaissance ornamentation seen on this particular suit is the result of a collaboration between Philip and the painter Diego de Arroyo, whose cleverness in interpreting the ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and infusing into them a slight Hispano-Moorish tincture, is known to have delighted Philip. Diego de Arroyo accompanied the prince to Augsburg, and it is on record that he assisted in designing armour and saddles for him.
Looking at the suit we cannot help feeling that the open casque fails to harmonize with the comparative simplicity of the remainder of the harness. Except in the case of the crest, which bears a laurel wreath, the whole surface is occupied with small figures, strapwork, birds and festoons, grouped and interlaced in perplexing richness. On either side of the skull-piece are two medallions surrounded by laurel and containing combats between warriors. All the work is embossed and chased with great delicacy, and notwithstanding
