Saturday 2 April 2011

French classical helmet




Had some pics sent me by Dennis Bray who runs an excellent blog on the Early Modern Warfare - see below - and he has read about my interest in the French classical helmet of the 17th century and sent me these images from Portuguese sources. The black and white image is described in the caption as 17th century German, artist unknown.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To me, the officer's helmet in the b/w illustration looks like a variation of a burgonet helmet, and the helmets of the cavalrymen depicted in the coloured illustrations look like stylized cavalry pot helmets, those of the officers perhaps being of the zischagge type.

Jorge P. Freitas said...

I agree with the previous comment. The helmets in the Portuguese illustration are stylized depictions of the cheap and common Portuguese cavalry helmet, with the officers carrying the lobster tail helmet - which was also in use with other ranks, though most of Portuguese cavalry of the period (1641-1668) preferred to wear wide brim hats.