668 ARMOUR. I. Body Armour. SINCE the publication of the article in the ninth edition of this work on “Arms and Armour,”the subject has been closely studied by experts, and is better understood generally than was the case five-and-twenty years ago. The tendency at present is to appreciate beauty of design and excellence in workmanship rather than historic interest or sentiment.
This tendency, which especially exists among Continental collectors, may give place some day to a demand for pieces which speak more directly of the warrior fighting in the field than of the skill of the artificer in the workshop; but the entire value of such pieces depends on their genuine character, and this is more difficult to establish in plain than in elaborate workmanship. Suits of armour which embody both skill and sentiment can hardly fail to be
Fig. 1 —Gothic style of armour. Monument of Count Otto IV. von Henueberg. sought after at all times. Of these, putting aside the question of armour known to have belonged to some celebrated man, the suits which are of by far the most value are those few which still remain of the 15th century, commonly called Gothic suits. These are appreciated not only on account of their rarity, but because of their singular beauty in design and excellence of manufacture. A few of these exist in the Tower of London, but the most beautiful suit in England is a mounted one in the Wallace collection. The monument of Count Otto IY. von Henneberg, executed after 1480, furnishes a very good example of 15th-century armour of the highest class. The
Fig. 2 —Suit by Jacob Topf, nearly complete ; the gorget docs not belong to it. Below is the placcate. photograph fromwhichFig. 1 was reproduced is from the cast in the South Kensington Museum. The effigy of Earl Richard in Warwick chapel is another beautiful example. Of this Mr Starkey Gardner says that it looks like the work of nature rather than art. Most readers must be familiar with another example in Albert Diirer’s print of “ the Knight, Death, and the Devil.” Armour culminated as to completeness, though it lost in beauty, at the end of the 15th century, when the so-called Maximilian type came in. In this the pointed toe gave place to one of extravagant width. Of this armour many fine examples exist, as the Tower of London includes several suits
