Arms and Armour
The first catalogue of European arms and armour from the Royal Collection.
Close helmet for funerary use
late seventeenth centuryRCIN 64178
Close helmet for funerary use, with skull, originally from an harquebusier’s pot, formed in two pieces joined along a low medial comb fitted at its apex with a spike for the attachment of an heraldic crest, at its rear with a separate nape-plate, at its front with a visor and bevor attached by common pivots, and at its lower edge by a single deep gorget-plate front and rear, the visor formed in two pieces set one above the other and joined medially by a vertical bar (originally flanked by two further bars now missing), all except the bevor and front gorget-plates, which were until 2011 displayed separately from the other elements, possessing a russet finish.
See also RCIN 67619.
Text adapted from Arms and Armour in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: European Armour, London, 2016