A 'HOUNSKULL' BASINET, 20TH CENTURY IN THE GERMAN STYLE OF THE LATE 14TH CENTURY
of notable weight with a tall skull of ogival form projecting rearwards over the neck as a short 'tail', cut at the front with an arched face-opening, pierced around its lower edge and to either side of its face-opening with two series of small holes for the attachment of an aventail and lining, stuck at the right of the nape with the maker's initials PL, for Per Lillelund-Jensen, within a rectangle, and fitted at the brow with two flat hooks set one above the other, serving to attach, beneath a pivoted catch with an animal-headed upper terminal, the hinge of a Klappvisier of 'hounskull' form, with boxed slits over each eye and the mouth and small circular ventilation-holes at the right of its projecting conical snout (lightly pitted overall)
31.0 cm; 12¼ in

The basinet resembles in form examples in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (ex. Londesborough and Dino collections), and the Kunstsammlung der Veste Coburg, Thuringia (Laking 1920-2, Vol. I, pp. 243-4, figs 283-5).