The Armour Archive

Signo wrote:The only thing for sure is that those artists were very good at detailing things and at the same time being creative and drawing in a very peculiar way. I mean, it's very hard to tell where the depiction of reality stops and where fantasy begin. It's a bit like modern movies, you can't say for sure which of the things you see are real or computer effects. :)
How can you draw a line? And secondly: how restrict was this fashion
in time and space that left us almost only pictorial evidence and just
few extant pieces? Is there any chance that this is more an artistic fashion than a real one?

Signo,

I am quite worried about this as well. As you say, it is impossible
to really tell where the reality ends and the fantasy begins. Just
for starts, Konrad Laib painted the Graz crucifixion in 1457. The
style of armor he was depicting had been out of fashion for almost
a generation. Now, figure in the part where he is depicting
ancient Romans, and we can see how the resulting art can get a little
unreliable.

It may well be the case that the helmet in question never really
existed at all.

What we are trying to do may be like trying to reconstruct the
costume of the late 1960s from poster for "Yellow Submarine".

Mac

Pitbull,

I think it most likely that the visor is all one piece. That is to say,
that the brow reinforce is part of the visor.

Mac

Mac wrote:What we are trying to do may be like trying to reconstruct the
costume of the late 1960s from poster for "Yellow Submarine".
Mac

That's so true.

Hmmmm.......?

Jeffrey Hedgecock wrote:

Mac wrote:What we are trying to do may be like trying to reconstruct the
costume of the late 1960s from poster for "Yellow Submarine".
Mac

That's so true.

I wonder how often that is the case.
For one thing that image looks like the head is turned away slightly from us (more back on). We have no idea how much the artist tried to create a perspective fore-shortening effect.

Did some more sketching. Thought I would do a full sketch of what I'm hoping for in an end result. I really don't like the original visor on the helmet, just the skull and jaw shape. The visor was just too... plain for me. I like gaudy outlandish stuff that hopefully is off the wall enough that not too many people will have similar styles. The rondel is a copy from another helm, the visor is a reworking of another piece showing a helm with a similar jaw shape, both from the same period. I would like to have the crest, deco on the gorget, the stop rib, the rondel, and all of the rolled edges gold plated, with (obviously) mock pearls and rubies. I want the rivets holding the liner to be countersunk and ground down to be unseen.

Again, this is just what I'm aiming for.

I wish I had something insightful and intelligent to say about what you're striving for with this helm, but I don't, so I'd like you to know that I just pooped myself.

You made a nice sketch, but I see some problems. I hope you take this criticism as constructive.

Your choice of visor pulls this hat away from the historical. I've seen that visor on some Czech-made klappvisier bascinet repros after examples of probably 75 years earlier. That type of visor doesn't strike me as appropriate for this helm if you're going for an historically accurate piece.

Same goes with the sunken border on the gorget plates and the bead around the neck. Beaded neck joints are more typically found on 16th century armets and close helms, where that bead captures a roll on the upper edge of the gorget, providing a turning joint for head movement. It would be purely decorative on a piece like this one, and that type of decoration seems inappropriate to me, given the aesthetic of the period.

The rondels on the visor pivots remind me of very simple archers' and infantry sallets of about the 1450's-60's, and don't really seem to fit in this application. They rather turn this helm into something different than what is seen in the Laib altarpiece.

I was under the impression that you were going for a historically styled piece rather than something just "inspired" by the Laib painting? If that's not the case and you're doing something original, that's fine and you should just ignore my suggestions, but if you are trying to be faithful to the 1420's-30's aesthetic brought forth in the painting, in my opinion, you're departing from it pretty substantially.

Jeff,

I most certainly take it as constructive. I do want something accurate to history but I don't want something that has been done multiple times by other armourers.

Here is where I base the visor and neck joint. I really really wish I had better pictures. As it is, I don't have a date, location, or artist for it. It may be a victorian or modern antiqued piece for all I know. The only info I got was that it might be in a museum in Berlin.



In this one you just catch a glimpse on the right side.



You can see what appears to be a close helm like design like we discussed earlier in the thread, and possibly a trianglular roll around the neck with the separate gorget. The shape of the chin isn't as elaborate as the one in the Laib altarpiece, but the function seems to be the same.

I realize I am drawing a lot from very little, and should the statues be found to be innacuracies then I will rework the design. I'm going to do a sketch up with a similar shaped visor that is either standard for what we expect on a great bascinet or with a single sight slot.

The step in the gorget will have to go though. After reviewing it I cant find any reason I should have included it. I was attempting to show a change from steel to gilding. Possibly it is fluting or etching that is not as clear in the original art?

You are correct on the rondel. Do you feel a standard round rondel would be better suited? After drawing up a design for the spaulders I was thinking about copying the rondels shown on the soldier to the upper left. Concave brass with a convex dimple in the center.

I L.O.V.E that sketch. If I had half an ounce of talent I would go full tilt on it...I can't wait to see how you figure it all out!

If anyone has any info on the series of statues, it would be greatly appreciated. I have searched, and searched, and searched and come up with nothing. I got it off the kastenbrust thread on mediaephile forum, but there was no documentation for it and nothing brought up about it later in the thread. Tried searching through inventories of museums in Berlin, image searches to see if they might be hosted elsewhere, and I've already looked through most of the historical artwork sites like ImaReal.

Here are two better pics of the sketch, since this thread is already full of them.

I think it is a very interesting look. I would have agreed with Jeff, but after seeing the statue it does seem to be a close interpretation of the helmet depicted. Although on the sunken border Jeff is correct, too 16th C. Small note; if you want the collar and helm to "lock", the bead on the lower edge of the helm must be perfectly round and on a single plane. You have drawn it with some curve. The visor pivot also looks to be too low.
I strongly believe that our limited knowledge of a period has a tendency to stifle many original or “out of the normâ€

I did a quick workup of various visors from the kastenbrust library I've put together. Most of them have had minor changes to fit the helmet, but keep the same basic shape. Variations of the beak seem to be the most common. All of them are from artwork between 1415-1460. I can provide images of the original art if requested, just specify the sketch letter.

you have a kastenbrust library?

roughly 250 images, most dated with artist and location. Some are of others reproductions but most are artwork from the 15th century.

I just wanted to see if anyone has any further input, images, etc. It has been three years and this helmet still baffles me. I really want to start on this, and I'm thinking I may just get some steel and go at it, seeing what shape comes out.

I would say, go for it! As Mac said, so little is known about this style of armour that anything you do will help us understand it better. This will be really cool and I will be very interested in how it turns out. All I have played around with, in terms of Kastenbrust armour, is make a couple of gauntlets. This will be much more interesting.

Just going back and tying this old thread to a newer related one.

Information on Early 15c. Reproduction Helmet

Thought I'd bump this up to the top, as I've begun working on the helmet. I spent last night looking through some old photos, sparked an idea, and started sketching and making a 3d model. I took today off work and went ahead and make full size profiles and started raising the skull. Well, I made a couple of passes after spending most of the day finding and cleaning my hammers.

This one will be a thin gauge mockup, as I'm not willing to invest 4130 if it doesn't work out. I'll post pics of the sketches tomorrow, didn't think to take any pics today.

What was getting us before was that the visor looks like it comes to a point in the bottom. I was looking at my old sketches of different visors and tried sketching the same helmet pose with different visors. When I came to a shovel faced visor, with a flat edge on the bottom, I had a lot of difficulty getting it right. It kept coming out looking like a point. After sketching out a front view, it really eliminates the cyclops look, and matches the ridge in the cheek. It now has a more armet looking face. Discussing this with someone via email, I was sent a link to one of Capwell's articles on an armet converted to a close helm. I traced out that same helmets profile, added a bit of room for the ridge around the back and just a hint of a point, and bingo.

I'm pretty excited about actually kicking this thing off.

I'm pretty excited to see one of these things come together!
Good luck Dierick

Ok, so here is what I've got.

My understanding is that the earliest known close helms were from the end of the 15th century. Much of what we see in artwork depicting the earlier 15th century, or referencing older armour, seems to show great bascinets and sallets or bascinets with bevors. Capwell wrote an article available in the spring 2012 edition of the Park Lane Arms Fair regarding the Bury St. Edmunds armet that had been converted to an early close helm. What I did was take the lines from this helmet and try to replicate it into the shape we see with the Graz helmet. It came out to a surprisingly clean fit.

Mainly I was focused on the angle relation between what I will call the keel(the ridge along the back of the helmet) and the line around the neck. In the painting the lower half of the keel seems to closely parallel to the line around the neck.

The point on the back of the helmet gave everyone trouble in the sketches, as far as placement and angle. I took the referenced armet profile and added about half an inch, just enough to allow the attachment of some kind of crest without anything digging into the top of my skull.

The chin/bevor I am speculating on. Since we have next to no hard proof of a close helm or anything resembling it from the kastenbrust era, I've gotta go with my gut and see how it works out. I've poured over pictures for years, every time I think about the helmet, and keep finding things that push me towards this. The painting offers no lines showing either a close helm, armet, or separate bevor, but I have come across numerous artworks of similar helmets showing a line on the side of the neck to the pivot and a line around the neck with either a static or an articulated gorget. Putting this in place with the gorget of the man to the left in the painting, I am basing the gorget and neck line of the helmet on this idea. The painting is dated 1449, so its hard to say Laib and other artists from the time period were basing anything resembling a close helm on helmets even later than this. At worst I am faulting Laib with depicting an earlier close helm than we know of from mid century.

The visor, as stated in my last post, is also an artistic guess. I am decent at getting shapes and perspectives right, but I had a rough time getting the flat bottomed shovel shape right from this perspective. I thought about this style while looking at the buff plate on the armet to closehelm conversion. It just seems to fit. Unfortunately for this helmet, I hate that visor and have no intention of keeping it on the helmet. I'll make it, brow included(I didn't include it in my sketches but with the armet profile the brow moves perfectly over the skull), but I just don't like it. More than likely I will make a couple of different visors for it, as I love the odd looks some of them have from this period.

The print I would be interested in speculation of what we are seeing with the helmet slightly left of center.

The image of the fragment I would greatly love to find out more about. I pulled this off a foreign language site several years ago and have it cataloged as "1435-1435 Italian Helm Fragment", but have no further information on it. I've done several reverse image searches, but the only thing that comes up is my collection of kastenbrust images hosted on other sites.

Without going back through this thread, I can't remember if anyone has linked to images from this MS. http://manuscriptminiatures.com/search/?manuscript=4161

It contains a number of examples of helmets with pivoted bevors, such as this one.



Mac

There is another sort of construction that antedates the true close-helm. Few surviving examples, alas, but I think it the most likely. Pardon the small size of the Friedrich the Victorious harness. The Philly example is iffy, but shows the principle better. Why this didn't take off but the true close-helm did is a mystery to me.