Handbook of Arms and Armor; European and Oriental, Including the William H. Riggs Collection (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II THE PRESENT COLLECTION AND ITS ARRANGEMENT THE earliest arms and armor in the Museum collection are to be seen in the Bronze Room (D 12), in several of the Egyptian rooms (D 3, E1, 3), and in the room devoted to Cretan reproductions (H 4). All later specimens, which together represent over nine-tenths of the collection, have now been brought together from all sources and installed in four galleries in Addition H. European specimens appear in the main gallery (H 9), and in the large north room (H 8); Japanese armor is displayed in a room (H 6) east of the main gallery, and the remaining Oriental arms in a room adjacent to this (H 5).1 In these galleries an arrangement has been followed which aims to furnish an outline of the armorer's art in various countries and more or less in a chronological sequence. For this reason, the visitor is recommended to consult the diagram of the galleries, Plate LXV, and follow approximately the path which is there outlined. He should accordingly examine first of all the European objects. Entering the main gallery near the staircase of the elevator, he finds in front of him and at the right the earlier objects?Prankish arms, a few head-pieces and fragments of armor antedating A. D. 1400, and a series of cases of chain-mail and "Gothic" suits of armor, saddles, casques, and various arms earlier than 1500. The visitor should now turn to the left into the middle of the main hall and passing the equestrian figures, which are arranged somewhat in order of time, go back to his first position. Turning to the west, he next examines the arms of the "Maximilian period," when during the early decades of the sixteenth century elaborately fluted armor was developed. He then continues along the west side of the main gallery, viewing the panoplies of the ...