Richard Zschille, Grossenhain, Saxony (1847-1903), included in the sale of his distinguished collection of arms and armour, Christie, Manson & Woods, January 25, 1897, lot 39; subsequently re-offered and sold Rudolph Lepke, Berlin, 21st -22nd March 1900, lot 34; Frank Gair Macomber collection, Boston; included in the negotiated sale of the collection to The Cleveland Museum of Art over the period 1916-23, the purchase funded by Mr. & Mrs. John Long Severance. Subsequently deaccessioned. Private collection, USA
Conventional to the period the greater part of shield body is of shallow convex form with a flat narrow rim and turned cabled edge. At the centre a pyramidal spike is fitted seated on an engraved and gilt calyx washer. The body is pieced with pairs of holes originally for rivets attaching the enarms (arm-straps), the rim retains some if its brass-capped rivets for attaching a lining.
The entire outer surface is lavishly decorated with a complex gold-and silver-damascened plan made up of concentric bands of emblematic cartouches, their edges minutely punched and damascened in gold throughout, the remaining smaller spaces filled with finely drawn gold arabesques, the smaller inner series of these repeated in expanded form within the third band of cartouches and again between the elaborate cartouches encircling the rim.
The innermost band of cartouches is formed as six petals each filled with a damascened flowering spray, the middle band is formed of six ovals all filled with minutely detaileddiffering architectural landscape vignettes, variously involving trees, rivers and classical ruinsscattered with tiny hunting dogs, birds and a wyvern, and finely damascened throughout in gold picked-out in silver. Similarly damascened, a series of trophies-of-war punctuate the ovals of the middle band, pendant from the central band. The third band comprises a series of cartouches shaped as classical shields, each enclosing a damascened rampant dragon, these characteristically graphic monsters arranged as prominent opposing pairs; an alternating arrangement of further trophies and shaped rectangular gold arabesques is placed between.
The damascened designs covering the rim reprise the theme of architectural landscape vignettes, now in a slightly larger scale and drawn to reveal an extraordinary level of characterful detail all picked-out in gold and silver. The buildings involved are in part neo-eastern, part Italianate, involving whole towns with church spires and domes, arches, rivers and trees, while scattered within are minute birds, animals and fantastic beasts, together with mounted warriors including St. George slaying the dragon. Set between these cartouches is a further series of shaped rectangular arabesques, now alternating with a series of complex designs of tightly scrolling leafy tendrils with monster’s head terminals and inhabited by birds, and heightened by a contrasting open and spirited tendril pattern damascened in silver,transposed over the goldwork.
The entire design set against a very light russet ground, naturally oxidised from the original blue, in very fine untouched condition throughout, the damascening preserved with little wear.
The damascening on the present shield had at the end of the 19th century been ascribed by Guy Laking to Hieronymus Spacini of Milan, a view now broadly dismissed. This attribution was determined on the basis of comparison with a damascened shield in the Wallace Collection (A 334), which is signed by Spacini, then working in Bologna. Despite a very general shared resemblance to the style in which the damascened designs are ordered, in part as bands of prominent framed vignettes, modern study has judged the style and workmanship used to be unrelated to the present example.
The earliest examples of European armour decorated with damascening in gold and silver are the parade pieces from the Milanese workshops of the distinguished Negroli dynasty of armourers, circa 1540. Foremost among these examples is a signed helmet dated 1543, preserved in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. 17.190.1720). Also attributed to the Negrolis is the damascened ‘Armure aux Lions’ of Francis I of France, circa 1540-45and similarly the silver-damascened armour made for Henry II as dauphin, circa 1540, each attributed to Negrolis and each in the Musée de l’armée, Paris (G 50 and G 118).
From this beginning in Milan a prolific line of development in the damascening of armour, the hilts of swords and daggers, maces, the barrels, locks and mounts of firearms, as well as luxurious domestic objects can be traced, flourishing in Milan well into the mid-17th century.
Almost parallel to this evolution in Milan a rival tradition of damascening had emerged in Spain, shortly joined by a near-identical ‘school’ of work in the Flemish city of Antwerp. The Spanish enterprise is attributed to Diego de Çaias, perhaps from Castille, his earliest known work, a gold-damascened ear dagger of circa 1530, is now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. 39.159.1). Other examples of his damascened works confirmed as hisown follow from circa 1539 to the mid-16th century, two of which he made for Henry II of France, another for Henry VIII of England and another for his son, Edward VI.
Thereafter the numerous other damascened works created in the style apparently established by de Çaias are more loosely attributed, over course falling into the category of ‘workshop of’, suggesting the work of followers only.
The Antwerp branch of damascening followed the Spanish designs extremely closely and were only initially confirmed by the existence of a damascened rapier hilt in the HistorischesMuseum, Dresden (E.58), signed by Damianus de Nerve and dated 1556. A further twelve distinguished examples of damascened hilts and firearms are firmly attributed to de Nerve, together with the damascened decoration of a parade armour made for the Emperor Maximilian II, circa 1555-59.
The design style common to both is essentially the use of very fine but small arabesque scrollwork patterns punctuated by small vignettes and all usually set within fine linear borders. The vignettes, both framed and unframed, involve a number of variations but are universally characterised by working to a minute scale, most commonly illustrating walled towns or other architecture in pastoral landscapes, augmented by tiny figures, domestic animals and fantastic mythical beasts. A series of small damascened caskets ascribed to the de Çaias / de Nerve workshops and dating from the mid-16th century well-illustrates these themes: one in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan (inv. 557), another belonging to the Waddesdon Bequest (17) in the British Museum, and a third in Cluny (no. 14397), (see Blair 1970, nos. 31-33, pp. 196-7, figs. 73-76).
In 1970 the distinguished arms and armour scholar Claude Blair published in the Metropolitan Museum Journal his ground-breaking survey and study of de Çaias, de Nerve,and the works ascribed to them (see Literature).
From the lengthy list of works put forward for consideration, in his Appendix to the main study Blair categorised the objects according to the strength of their possible attribution. The present shield was included under Blair’s Category E, the ‘possibly by workshop of’ group, its addition possibly a third-party suggestion.
At this point it should be noted that excluding the firmly attributed Maximilian II armour, only two other pieces of armour are loosely ascribed as possibly coming from the de Çaias / de Nerve workshops: one a comb morion in the Musée de Cluny, and the other of course the present shield (referred to above), each being decorated in a similar manner to the other.
While the architectural vignettes and arabesque ornaments existing in abundance over present shield draw obvious comparison with the de Çaias/ de Nerve designs, we contend that these current designs, and the overall greater freedoms displayed, possess qualities more closely aligned with the style of Milanese damascening.
In support of the present shield’s proposed attribution to a Milanese damascener’s workshop, the example is offered of a Milanese half-armour in the Hofjagd-und Rüstkammer of the Kunsthistorisches museum, Vienna (A 1408). Details such as the design of the more elaborate cartouche frames are clearly shared. On this armour also exist the tightly packed arabesque designs and the exotic small architectural designs more frequently attributed to Spain, but displayed here, as on the shield, within the finesse of Milanese style.
It would appear that Blair was unaware of this armour at the time of writing.
A further comparison can be made with the well-known series of magnificent damascened glaives made, almost certainly in Milan, for the guard of Cardinal Scipio Caffarelli-Borghese, circa 1605-10. The additional use of freely scrolling silver-damascened lines superimposed over the arabesque ornament draws obvious comparison, a lively decorative feature not present in any of the known Spanish work.
An additional comparison can be made, although somewhat anecdotally, with the similarity in the graphic characterisation of the respective dragon devices, which on the glaives forms a half of the Borghese arms.
The term ‘damascening’, as it applies to the particular technique used in the decoration of this shield, is best explained by the following account paraphrased from Chambers’s Cyclopaedia of 1788:
“…… make hatches, or strokes across the iron, and cut …. such as is to be used in the making of small filings. …… it is necessary the gravings, or incisions, be made in the dove-tail form; that the gold or silver wire, which is thrust forcibly into them, may adhere the more strongly. ….. (the method is) having heated the steel till it changes to a violet, or blue colour, they hatch it over and across, with the knife; then draw the design, or ornament, intended, on this hatching, with a fine brass point or bodkin. This done, they take fine gold wire, and conducting it or chasing it accordingly to the figure already designed, they sink it carefully into the hatches of the metal with a copper tool.”
Peter Finer gratefully acknowledges the scholarship of Claude Blair, former Keeper of Metalwork, the Victoria and Albert Museum.