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Fig. 1569. A Paris forgery of about 1890
Late XIVth century sword, the hilt decorated with niello silver-work
fair to this dealer, who is no longer alive, to say that the collection was shown by him with a full belief in the genuineness of its pieces. The splendour of the display was bewildering: indeed it might have been the contents of some cathedral treasury exposed to view. On the central table in the room in which they were shown were tilting helms purporting to be of the XIVth and XVth centuries, and swords and daggers with historical attributions of about the same epoch; while at one side of the gallery hung a half suit of superb German Gothic armour, consisting of the breast- and backplate, the former with a movable placate, complete arms, salade helmet, and mentonnière. The leg-pieces and tuilles were wanting. This panoply was beautiful in form and was enriched with tracery in brass round the borders, etc. The age was admirably imitated, part of the brass tracery having been broken away in the most natural manner. Some of the plates were rusted through and apparently carelessly mended; the whole of the exterior surface of the suit was rusted to a hard black patine which until quite recently it was thought impossible to reproduce; while the Nuremberg guild mark was stamped on several of the plates. We are bound to admit that we were impressed, deceived, and yet still more mystified; for where could such a collection of unknown treasures suddenly have come from? Some story was told of its having belonged at one time to a member of the great Alva family, and of its having been concealed in a monastery in the north of Spain. A morning devoted to a close scrutiny of the various pieces sufficed to shake the author's belief in the genuineness of the pieces in the collection, and he suddenly felt convinced that the whole collection was false from beginning to end, but of its kind superlatively deceptive. The clue which helped to unravel the mystery was supplied by one of the helmets, which purported to be a snouted bascinet of the latter part of the XIVth century. This bascinet, which was beautifully made and bore every appearance
