add here as an epilogue to our somewhat lengthy description of the Colbert casque, an account of an interesting discovery made by the author. When Mr. Frederick Peter Seguier's Collection was sold at Christie's (February 1903) by order of his executors, amongst other items there appeared a buffe or face-guard (Lot 121), superlative in excellence of design and workmanship (Fig. 1265). Its surface was patinated to the colour of a fine Cinquecento bronze, an effect produced by the mastic varnish with which it had been covered many generations ago. That it was an example of metal work of the highest artistic merit—apart from its technical interest as a piece of harness—was apparent even to those who had no particular appreciation of armour and of arms. Notwithstanding this, it sold for a comparatively small sum of £315 at the auction and was bought by the author for his friend, Mr. William Newall, passing into the latter's fine but heterogeneous collection of works of art. Now, we recognized the buffe as a most remarkable piece of armour; but the method of its enrichment recalled no similar feature in any example of the armourer's art with which we were then acquainted. Three years later—at the time when the Duc de Dino's Collection was sold en bloc to the Metropolitan Museum of New York—that collection, which was then in London, was under our charge; and on examining for the first time the Colbert casque, its enrichment reminded us of a familiar style. The decoration of the casque seemed to be in tune, if the phrase may be allowed, with that which we remembered on Mr. Newall's piece of armour. A letter to Mr. Newall brought the owner and buffe to London. It took little time to fit the buffe to the casque: the head-piece and the face-guard immediately locked together, as in almost affectionate embrace, after their three hundred and forty years of separation. The face-guard bought at Christie's proved to be the actual buffe belonging to, and made for, the Colbert casque; one difference only was apparent, that of colour. The helmet was splendid in its wonderfully fresh-looking gilding; while the buffe, as we have said, was patinated a dark brown. After careful consultation it was decided to remove a portion of the brown surface of the buffe. This was done, and beneath its dark patina, shining in an almost pristine state of preservation, was the original gilding. The rest of the buffe was most carefully cleaned, with the result that its surface is now practically the same as that of the casque to which it belongs. Shortly after this romantic meeting the Colbert casque went with the remainder of the Duc de Dino's Collection to find a permanent home in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and the buffe returned to its home in Mr. Newall's Collection at Rickmansworth: so now
