Thank you for registering for our auction! You are required to provide: 1. Deposit; 保证金待商议; 2. Copy or images of ID card (front and back) or Passport 3. Images of Credit card (front and back).
PROBABLY TURKEY, 16TH CENTURY WITH LATER ADDITIONS Of domed form with rounded ribs, tapering to a point, the body engraved with floral palmettes, with later 18th century tombak mounts and steel chainmail, some cracks and small losses to steel 10 5/8in. (27cm.) high
In overall feeling this helmet relates to one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Alexander, 2015, pp.90-91, no.31). Like ours that has a broad decorative band around the base engraved with large fleshy flowerheads – there alternated with calligraphic cartouches. The decoration on both helmets is engraved in a bold manner with a background filled with small dots. The Metropolitan Museum helmet is attributed to Mamluk or post-Mamluk Egypt or Syria, circa 1515-20, largely on the basis of a similar example in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum which bears a Mamluk blazon and is inscribed with the name of Kha’ir Bey (d.1522), the last Mamluk governor of Aleppo.
Another similar helmet to ours is in the Khalili Collection, catalogued there as Ottoman Turkey, later 15th century (acc.no.MTW1450; Rogers, 1995, pp.140-1, no.83). A steel chamfron in the Askeri Müzesi, Istanbul, again engraved with similar flowerheads, has an inscription which says it was made for Sultan Selim I (r.1512-20) tying it down to Ottoman Turkey and indicating that similar decorative elements were used both by the Mamluks and the Ottomans (Gü?kiran, 2009, pp.36-37). During the 15th century various different variations on the basic forms of armour were produced in the Ottoman, Turkman and Mamluk empires. There is frequently more variety to be found within the forms made for each of these armies than there is between them. Distinguishing therefore between the products of each empire can be difficult, unless there is either the name of a historical figure, or a blazon as found on the Kha’ir Bey helmet, the Sultan Selim chamfron or on a chamfron sold in these Rooms, 13 April 2010, lot 64.
Our helmet has a tombak visor which was likely to have been added in 18th century Turkey, suggesting that the helmet was there then and possibly reinforcing an Ottoman attribution.