Renaissance infantry armour by Pompeo Della Cesa of Milan, guide £600,000-£1.2m at Apollo Art Auctions. The engraved vignette of the Virgin and Child to the breastplate is signed Pomp.
One of the best-preserved Italian Renaissance armours in private hands comes for sale at Apollo Art Auctions in London on July 13-14. Part of the so-called Prince collection, it is estimated at £600,000-£1.2m.
While its commission is uncertain (it was perhaps made for Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (1520-78) or another governor of the Duchy of Milan), the profusely etched and gilded infantry parade armour is signed to the breastplate Pomp for the famed Milanese workshop of Pompeo Della Cesa. Completing the garniture is a helmet, gorget, pauldrons, rerebraces, couters, vambraces, and tassets, all retaining original velvet lining.
Renaissance infantry armour by Pompeo Della Cesa of Milan, guide £600,000-£1.2m at Apollo Art Auctions. The engraved vignette of the Virgin and Child to the breastplate is signed Pomp.
During the 19th century it was part of the armour collection of Charles Maurice Camille de Talleyrand Périgord, Duc de Dino (1843-1917) that was purchased en bloc by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in April 1904.
American collector SJ Whavell acquired it from the museum in 1925. It was last sold as part of the Schulthess family collection at Gallerie Fischer (Lucerne, Switzerland) in September 2009 when, guided at SFr250,000-350,000, it took a premium-inclusive SFr798,000 (around £700,000).
The Prince collection, sold by Apollo across recent sales, is thought to be part of the huge holdings of antiquities and other works of art amassed by Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Thani before his untimely death in 2014. During his lifetime the former Qatari minister of culture and heritage spent more than $1bn (£630m) on art, buying categories as diverse as Islamic art and vintage bicycles.
Tsar’s shashka
Caucasian presentation shashka, estimate £1.6m-£2.4m at Apollo Art Auctions.
From another source, a Caucasian presentation shashka that belonged to Nicholas II has a guide in the auction of £1.6m-£2.4m.
Presented to the tsar when he was the heir to the Russian throne during the imperial family’s visit to the Caucasus in 1888, it is adorned with ivory, gold, wood, and enamel, and inscribed to the blade with calligraphic Arabic couplets blessing the owner with good fortune, long life, and the attainment of glory.
Previously owned by a Polish aristocratic family and then by Russian sword specialist Eugene Mollo in Switzerland, it comes from a European collector.
