St. Augustine Florida Excavated Spanish Morion

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Terry K

What a find!

And with a most convincing look and extremely well recuperated .

And if you don't mind Dana, i will show here the so called "Gold cabasset of Goa", a master piece of Indo-Portuguese art, probably ordered by a Vice-Roy, a recurrent luxury practiced by period nobility, the type of those exuberant excesses then forbidden by the King. It is indeed a repousse work in copper, covered with a thick layer of gold. The motifs depicted are various, namely hunting scenes on horse and foot, with Europeans wearing "baloon" trousers, and a number of flowers, birds and animals, including monkeys with human faces.
It was located in the Azores, for no explained reason, and it was covered with black pitch, in a way to hide its real value.


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[dana_w]

VERY nice!

[Jim McDougall]

Dana, thank you so much for the response and additional colonial information. That really puts a nice context around this outstanding cabasset!
St. Augustine is a fascinating place, and I visited there once several years ago, not spending nearly enough time there and always longing to go back.
Your father, Jack Williams, was indeed a connoisseur of fascinating antiquities and it is great that you carry forth his astute and discerning passions.
Keep 'em coming OK!!!

All best regards
Jim

[Jim McDougall]

Fernando , the item on the Gold Cabasset of Goa was a great discussion we had back in 2011, and was part of one of my forays into art history and Rembrandt's use of exotic arms and armor in his works. I was trying to find out just what kind of helmet was depicted in "Man With the Golden Helmet" which once thought by the master himself but turned out to be by one of his school.
I discovered this was actually a 'pear stalk cabasset', and in your entry you noted the example of the Portuguese viceroy was of the same 'school' of highly decorated helmets of this otherwise ordinary form worn by 16th-17th century infantry and pikemen.

The artist of the "Man with the Golden Helmet" seems to have used some license by adding ear flaps, probably mindful of those seen on contemporary lobster tail helmets.

We can only wonder what the original helmet used for the basis for that worn in the "Man with the Golden Helmet" (c.1650) might have looked like, but perhaps very much like this interesting example shared here by Dana.
These cabassets were of course widely used in Europe and Spain in her colonies and provinces (including Netherlands), and clearly with Portuguese connections in their many colonial holdings.

[fernando]

Good memory Jim.
Worthy of note is that, while we ignore how much artistic liberty, as from its model, is used in the decoration of such magnificent cabasset depicted in "Man With the Golden Helmet", that executed in the Portuguese Vice-Roy example is pure reality ... indeed an exorbitant demonstration of Indo-Portuguese artistry.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

Good memory Jim.
Worthy of note is that, while we ignore how much artistic liberty, as from its model, is used in the decoration of such magnificent cabasset depicted in "Man With the Golden Helmet", that executed in the Portuguese Vice-Roy example is pure reality ... indeed an exorbitant demonstration of Indo-Portuguese artistry.

Good point Fernando, and well placed. While the Dutch artist devised a fantastic helmet with the artists inventiveness and brush, the Portuguese example was a reality. One can only wonder if such other helmets were seen or known to these Dutch individuals, or whether such helmets were quite rarely seen and the embellishment was purely coincidental.

[Philip]

My impression is that a cabasset is distinguished by a narrow flat brim around the entire circumference of the shell, whereas a moron has a brim that is peaked fore-and-aft. At least that's what I gather from Oakeshott's classifications. If so, it would seem that this particular helmet might be a rare and unusual intermediate type -- what do you guys think?

As said previously, it's marvelously intact for something excavated in an area with tropical climate. I hope that steps have been taken to stabilize the metal to keep it as intact as we see it now, for generations to come. Thanks for sharing this, Dana! I hope you have no plans to keep wearing this thing in parades or for any other festive gatherings.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Good point Fernando, and well placed. While the Dutch artist devised a fantastic helmet with the artists inventiveness and brush, the Portuguese example was a reality. One can only wonder if such other helmets were seen or known to these Dutch individuals, or whether such helmets were quite rarely seen and the embellishment was purely coincidental.

Rainer Daehnhardt dedicates more than one page to this subject in the catalogue this 'Vice Roy' example went to auction. In a more thorough reading, at one stage he comments on the paint "The man with the golden cabasset", 'previously' attributed to Rembrandt, as being one more example of the same kind, probably fallen into the hands of the Dutch, during one of the frequent battles fought in the Indic Ocean. So according to his perspective the pseudo-Rembrandt example is not, as i previously realized, an artist invention but one modeled from the real thing... and probably also Indo-Portuguese. In another paragraph he mentions that the only other exixting example of this school is in the NY Metropolitan, however naked from its gold cover and with all buttons missing.


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