Helmet (kulah khud) with chain mail aventail, plume holder and spike, watered steel with gold kuftkari overlay of pious Arabic inscriptions in cartouches, Iran, c.1600-1750.

Watered steel helmet with a shallow bowl decorated with gold kuftkari floral borders. Single porte aigrette where nasal should be with chiselled floral ornament. Aventail of fine steel and brass butted mail links with dagged ends. Iran, 17th century.

Bought from the collection of Gaston de Saint-Maurice (1831-1905) in 1884. Saint-Maurice displayed his extensive art collection at the 1878 Paris exhibition, in a gallery entitled L'Egypte des Khalifes. This was part of an official sequence of displays celebrating the history of Egypt, presented by the Egyptian state at this international event. Saint-Maurice held a position at the Khedival court, and had lived in Cairo in 1868-1878. Following the exhibition, Saint-Maurice offered his collection for sale to the South Kensington Museum (today the V&A).

974-1884