Mystery solved. This dog-eared photograph in our Department's archives is the earliest known representation of elements of armor for man and horse that Bashford Dean, the founder and first curator of our Department, had in his private collection and bequeathed to us in 1928. The rider's helmet is a probable work of the celebrated Augsburg armorer Kolman Helmschmid and certainly one of the gems in our collection. Where did Dean acquire this equestrian ensemble? We did not know, but the photograph, which was taken before he owned it, seemed a potential clue. The humble document has now lived up to our expectations, for the same image was found in an auction catalogue, of which we did not have a copy. The equestrian ensemble was a lot in a 1920 German sale of property from the German House of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, and one of a group of items that, by way of a complicated inheritance process, had come to them from the armory of the Princes Radziwill in Nesvizh Castle, Belarus (at the time Lithuania.) This new provenance confirms stylistic evidence that out helmet belongs to other elements known to originate from the same armory and that are now widely scattered. It is now time to track them all down and reconstruct, on paper at least, the luxury armor of which they were parts! Photo: @pierre.terjanian #themet #metarmsandarmor #armor #provenance #clue #sayn #wittgenstein #radziwill #research #piecingittogether #bashforddean (at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/BuZ6go8HGiQ/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=cwf52okk50bu
