Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/376

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that we recognized the chanfron in the Riggs Collection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York; though now it is sadly overcleaned. Mr. Riggs obtained this piece from the Magniac Collection when it was dispersed at Christie's in 1892 (No. 1045 in the sale catalogue of that collection) (Fig. 1083). As the Magniac Collection was brought together in the first half of the XIXth century, it is probable that the chanfron got separated from the suit to which it belongs at the time when the people of Madrid searched the city for arms with which to repel the French invasion of 1808; for a good deal of looting was indulged in on this occasion, a circumstance which may account for the disappearance of the other parts of the suit which are still missing.

Probably the best known achievement of Lucio Picinino is the suit preserved in the Imperial Armoury of Vienna (Fig. 1084). It is a much later work than the Sessa suit, but a wonderful and elaborate production; it shows, however, that slight deterioration in the method of enrichment that marks it out as belonging to a later decade. It may certainly be classed as the finest known work in Picinino's second manner.

Fig. 1084. Suit of armour

Probably made for Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma. Italian, in a later manner of Lucio Picinino of Milan, about 1570. Imperial Armoury, Vienna

Morigia, in his work Nobiltà di Milano, 1595, remarks that his contemporary Lucio Picinino has, "in his ornamentation of iron in relief with figures, animals, and grotesque masks, etc., and likewise in his damascene work, produced masterpieces which are among the most choice and precious." He adds