Goll's Thesis topic #3: Controversial or Suspicious Items

[Tom B.]

I am starting a series of topics based on info in Matthias Goll's PHD thesis.
See this thread for further info and download links:
PDH thesis armour production (photo download links added)

This thread is for discussion of controversial or suspicious items shown in Matthias Goll's thesis.
There are a bunch of obvious fakes, feel free to post those as well.
What I am looking for are the less obvious fakes, the suspicious associations and repair jobs.

I think these two are archer's sallets that have had visors added to make the more like Philip the Handsome's Sallet. The second one may have had some other work done as well.

(Click on photos to open the PDF)


Another One:

[Gustovic]

This arm harness. It feels like something is missing from the rebrace. Maybe it was badly damaged and the ruined part was cut out.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-bRpU ... 5_002.jpeg

[Tom B.]

This arm harness. It feels like something is missing from the rebrace. Maybe it was badly damaged and the ruined part was cut out.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-bRpU ... 5_002.jpeg

Link to PDF

[Mac]

This arm harness. It feels like something is missing from the rebrace. Maybe it was badly damaged and the ruined part was cut out.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-bRpU ... 5_002.jpeg

I am not sure what to think of those arms......

They were part of a fairly "complete" armor in the Wilczek collection of Schloss Kreuzenstein. That armor was a loose collection of real stuff and fakes all carefully married together. To make matters worse, someone had stamped most of the components with a spurious armorer's mark to make it all appear as an original assembly. That sort of crap really muddies the waters for us. It makes the fake stuff look real and the real stuff look fake. As a case in point, this assemblage included the now famous fluted Kastenbrust that Dr. Toby rescued from disgrace while he was curator in Glasgow. For decades it was thought to be a fake because of its provenance and the company it kept.

The most likely thing with these arms is that they consist of some some authentic parts and some parts made up out of old metal. When I handled these about ten years ago, I got the impression that they were made of real stuff that had been trimmed, patched, and cobbled together. The thing I liked least about them was that the upper cannons were so long. I suspect that they used to be something else before the 19th C "restorer" got his hands on them.... cuises, perhaps.

Mac

[Mac]

Here's a skillfully made, but ill-considered fake.



The eye is immediately drawn to the oversized sight.....



....and then you notice that the visor won't open.

Mac

[Tom B.]

I wonder if that skull is original and they just added the "visor"
There are no signs of holes where the pivots should be.
I don't know if I have ever seen one of these pointed sallets without a visor.

There is something about the form of the point that rubs me the wrong way.
Not sure exactly what it is.

[Konstantin the Red]

Upper rear profile of the skull?

The nape insweep is much nicer.

[Mac]

He was trying to make something like the Coventry sallet.



The pivots are in the right place, but it should be a "half visor" and a brow reenforcing plate. Note; the line from the corner of the sight which separates the visor from the brow plate.

I don't think the skull is real either. The line in the back is vigorous, but a bit overdone, and it does not accord well with the front line. Also, the patination and "hand" of the workman are homogeneous throughout the piece.

Mac

[Tom B.]

here is another one

[Mac]

The eye falls immediately on the visor.... and not in a good way.

The skull of the helmet seems unimpeachable. The workmanship is clean and vigorous, and the shape is all that one could hope fore. Unfortunately, someone was nor satisfied with an incomplete helmet and put that visor on it. Just for starts, the visor does not pass the "will this fit on a human being" test. If you were to put the helmet on and try to line up the sights with your eyes, your chin would rest against the visor.

This helmet would be improved in every way by removing the visor and its pivots.

Mac

[Tom B.]

Here are another two sallets...
Yuck

[Tom B.]

Is it time to start in on the many bascinets?

We certainly have not exhausted the bad sallets yet.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

That last "sallet" makes my teeth itch. It's not even the right shape for the very roughest mass-produced sallet...which makes the fact that it has a somewhat finished surface suspect, as opposed to being painted...which then makes the cast decorative edging look all the more out of place. And that tail! Just...ach, my brain.

[Otto von Teich]

I'd like to see more pics of that last one. It is an abomination. ..then again, maybe it just needs more brass trim! I kinda like the one above it! The rivets for the liner look a bit low, but the when you see how convex ( greatly exaggerated) it is from the front, that's about where they would have to be to work I guess..

[Tom B.]

I'd like to see more pics of that last one. It is an abomination. ..then again, maybe it just needs more brass trim! I kinda like the one above it! The rivets for the liner look a bit low, but the when you see how convex ( greatly exaggerated) it is from the front, that's about where they would have to be to work I guess..

On all of my posts just click on the photos to open the PDF.
Generally there are more photos there.

[Otto von Teich]

Thanks Tom!

[Mac]

There is an elephant in the room here, and I am going to try to introduce him.

One of the tenets of Dr. Goll's thesis is that it is difficult (or sometimes impossible) to objectively decide whether an object is "real", "fake", or something in between. He distrusts the inherent opacity of connoisseurship, and quite reasonably points out the shortcomings of some of the modern testing methods. While it disturbs him to have fakes passed as real, it also grieves him to see legitimate armor locked away out of sight because someone declared it to be a fake. In an effort to level the field, he has chosen to illustrate pretty much everything he could get a picture of. As a result, this impartial collection of images contains the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

While MOST of the objects he shows are authentic, there are a LOT of objects in this collection of images that are not what they might be. It's not just a half a dozen or so... it's hundreds.

--There are some that are laughable fakes from the 19th c.
--There are convincing fakes from the 19th c.
--There are some where you just can't tell. (And that's his point, I think)
--There are the well established marriages of authentic and modern items; made homogeneous by artifice of the restorer and the patina of time.
--There are overreaching restorations.
--There are some that are the subtle and seductive achievements of recent armorers.
--There are some that came from 19th C. craftsmen who were so prolific that their work forms well known groups which are easily misunderstood to be an authentic style.... (probably).
--There are some objects that have been rejected from the canon of authenticity which are authentic....(probably).
--There are objects cobbled together out of authentic parts languishing in museum backrooms, which deserve to be seen.
--There are authentic objects which have been "improved" by the addition of modern parts, which were better without them.

It's all in there.... The best, the worst, and everything in between..... All presented without judgment.

Dr. Goll has done us a great favor by making these images available, but we need to be aware that this rose bush has a lot of thorns.

Mac

[Tom B.]

Well said Mac.
I have done my best to give some warning to those sharing my photo albums.
I have been working on a list of the next items to post in this thread, several of them are good illustrations of your list. In addition to the mostly obvious pieces I hope to pick a few that will lead to discussion. Some of the bascinets are the first to come to mind.

There is an elephant in the room here, and I am going to try to introduce him.

One of the tenets of Dr. Goll's thesis is that it is difficult (or sometimes impossible) to objectively decide whether an object is "real", "fake", or something in between. He distrusts the inherent opacity of connoisseurship, and quite reasonably points out the shortcomings of some of the modern testing methods. While it disturbs him to have fakes passed as real, it also grieves him to see legitimate armor locked away out of sight because someone declared it to be a fake. In an effort to level the field, he has chosen to illustrate pretty much everything he could get a picture of. As a result, this impartial collection of images contains the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

While MOST of the objects he shows are authentic, there are a LOT of objects in this collection of images that are not what they might be. It's not just a half a dozen or so... it's hundreds.

--There are some that are laughable fakes from the 19th c.
--There are convincing fakes from the 19th c.
--There are some where you just can't tell. (And that's his point, I think)
--There are the well established marriages of authentic and modern items; made homogeneous by artifice of the restorer and the patina of time.
--There are overreaching restorations.
--There are some that are the subtle and seductive achievements of recent armorers.
--There are some that came from 19th C. craftsmen who were so prolific that their work forms well known groups which are easily misunderstood to be an authentic style.... (probably).
--There are some objects that have been rejected from the canon of authenticity which are authentic....(probably).
--There are objects cobbled together out of authentic parts languishing in museum backrooms, which deserve to be seen.
--There are authentic objects which have been "improved" by the addition of modern parts, which were better without them.

It's all in there.... The best, the worst, and everything in between..... All presented without judgment.

Dr. Goll has done us a great favor by making these images available, but we need to be aware that this rose bush has a lot of thorns.

Mac

[Tom B.]

I was glad to see that he did list Billy Radford's excellent reproduction of the Coburg Bascinet as a reproduction.
In my opinion this is the singly most misidentified piece of armour on the internet

--There are some that are the subtle and seductive achievements of recent armorers.

[Mac]

Some of the bascinets are the first to come to mind.

I'm almost afraid of the bascinets. Almost. There are some real howlers that are easy to dismiss, but then there are the ones that are pretty tough. Bascinets are very desirable to many collectors because they are so few and far between. Unfortunately there have been craftsmen filling the gaps in those collections for a good hundred and fifty years, and some of them have done a pretty creditable job.

OK, Here's a thought....

I wonder if it would be practical to start three new albums to stick the bascinets into; one for the good ones, one for the bad ones, and one for the ones we're not sure of. We could start with the ones about which there is little doubt either way, and move on to the ones which are harder. Hell, we could discuss them for years to come!.... but in the mean time some order would begin to emerge. If this works well, it might serve as a model for future triage of other types of armor.


Mac

[Gustovic]

It might be super-awesome as well to have a separate album for every type of armour (or at least for arms, legs, torso and helms).
16000 pictures are quite a lot to scroll through if you are looking for a specific object =).

[Keegan Ingrassia]

I hate to suggest this, but you can add tags to photos and photo albums in Flickr. You can then view only the images that have that tag. For instance, a tag could be "14th century", "bascinet", or even "fake". There isn't a limit on tags to a photo, so you could be as granular as you liked about it. You can even batch edit, as opposed to entering it for each individual photo.

I haven't enough experience with picasa to know if the same can be done there.

[Tom B.]

This exactly why I suggested bascinets next
I figured we might get some lively discussion going.

[Johann ColdIron]

It might be super-awesome as well to have a separate album for every type of armour (or at least for arms, legs, torso and helms).
16000 pictures are quite a lot to scroll through if you are looking for a specific object =).

No kidding!

While it is a fantastic document it is quite a bear to go through looking for something. I spent a bunch of time on visors recently. I was hoping some intrepid soul might annotate the photos for specifics...

[Tom B.]

It might be super-awesome as well to have a separate album for every type of armour (or at least for arms, legs, torso and helms).
16000 pictures are quite a lot to scroll through if you are looking for a specific object =).

No kidding!

While it is a fantastic document it is quite a bear to go through looking for something. I spent a bunch of time on visors recently. I was hoping some intrepid soul might annotate the photos for specifics...

I will be experimenting with the functions available in Picasa/Google+ to see what can be done and what is the easiest. For now I don't want to change these first 10 albums, many many people have linked to them and I don't want to mess that up. One possibility is for me to copy the existing 10 albums and then begin the sort from there. I think I could set the access such that this could be a collaborative effort.

We should probably discuss the categories / labels to be used.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Well, overarching date ranges would be helpful. Sifting through hundreds of 1500-1600 cuirasses (cuirasii?) is pretty, but not helpful if you're trying to track down 1400-1500 white harness.

Separating the collection into body, arm, leg, etc defense would also be useful when looking for a specific piece of a harness.

And adding a tag of "historical", "plausible", "suspect", and "fake" would be helpful...and hopefully prevent unfortunate recreations.

I'm not sure it's entirely necessary with this collection, but perhaps tagging the region the piece is from. Not a separate collection, just another tag of information.

[Tom B.]

From one of the other threads:

Speaking of full harnesses, I was excited to see images of this set. It's the first clear set of extant 14th century enclosed upper arms and cuisses I've seen. I'm going to assume that this harness is one of those things that fall into the "fake" category, unfortunately? That fan on the elbow looks wrong...as does the lack of tulip shaping to the forearms...and the hinges...and weird upward sweep of the shoulder lames from the side?

Here is a link to the PDF
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7VQpD ... sp=sharing

[Mac]

I am not at all sure I know how I missed seeing this. I thought I had looked at all of Goll's images at least twice.

A quick search shows that Karl Gimbel of Berlin (or perhaps Baden-Baden) had a number of armored figures in his collection in the early years of the 20th C. http://world4.eu/life-size-warrior-figu ... equipment/ http://www.biblio.com/book/die-reconstr ... /755794033

My first guess is that most or all of what is on this figure is late 19th C work, but it is very high quality. I wonder where it is today....

Mac

[Mac]

OK.

In 1902 Karl Gimbel, retired lieutenant of the Royal Army of Württemberg, published an album of photographs of European arms and armour which he had reconstructed from various textual and pictorial sources as well as from original objects in museums and private collections

(this lifted from here https://crossfireamersfoort.wordpress.c ... ollection/ )


The whole book is available here. http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db ... 02&seite=1

The description of our late 14th C guy starts here. http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db ... &seite=111

Mac

[Tom B.]

Wow!
That was quite a remarkable bit or work, especially if he did all of those himself.
Some of the pieces are quite good.

[Gustovic]

This looks awesome, but could also be fake.



Looks like early XIVth century arm harness (1340-ish). Photo is not that clear. Would love to have some more details.

[the Kirishitan]

This topic and conversation is fascinating. Thank you all for your dialogue on it. If I were to view these pieces, I wouldn't readily see these anomalies, yet in reviewing your comments with the pictures, they are as clear as day. It helps train my inexperienced eye, not for just the examples here, but when looking at armour in general. So again, thank you all, I am enjoying following along and learning.

Please, carry on!

[Mac]

This looks awesome, but could also be fake.



Looks like early XIVth century arm harness (1340-ish). Photo is not that clear. Would love to have some more details.

Are these in Goll's thesis? I don't remember seeing them there...

These arms are in the Wallace collection, and are generally accounted as fakes. I have seen some pics of them from the different angles, and in general I concur. I would like, some day, to handle them and try to see if there are any real parts hiding in there.

The elbows are strange and singular, in that they barely reach past the middle of the joint. They seem to have been articulated in the front and leathered in the back (is back you can call it, since it's barely past the middle)

The gauntlet cuffs are currently riveted to the vambraces.

The thing I find most interesting about these arms is the treatment of the integral shoulder defense. It is attached using pivots and sliding rivets, with no trace of leather. It is these arms that have caused me to re-think the whole idea of English arm armor. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=174916& They may well be fakes, but whoever made them may have been onto something real in this detail.

Mac

[Gustovic]

Well, they are in Tom's Pininterest album of Goll's thesis, so I assume yes.

Cuffs riveted to the vambraces? Nasty stuff...

But yeah, what struck me the most were the upper cannons and the shoulder defenses.
They really look nicely done and thought. Less I can say about the elbows and vambraces though....

[Mac]

Well, they are in Tom's Pininterest album of Goll's thesis, so I assume yes.

Can you find a Goll number for it? If you click on the pic in the album, it will be the ID # for the image.

Cuffs riveted to the vambraces? Nasty stuff...

Indeed. But, there is a small chance that we are dealing with old material that has been cobbled together, messed with, married with some new stuff, and patinated to look homogeneous. The riveted on gauntlets would have been to make the whole thing sit nicely on the manikin in some Victorian Gentleman's study.

The armor faker is a cunning breed, but one with a very imperfect sense of morality.

Mac