A RARE OTTOMAN TURKISH SHIELD, EARLY 16TH
CENTURY
of convex circular form, fitted at its centre with a separate boss of low ogival form decorated with twelve shallow flutes radiating from a later central spike issuing from a large ornamental washer and retained at the rear by a nut and smaller washer, the boss surrounded by four large and thirty-five smaller bosses (one of the latter replaced), probably representing working-life additions, of oval form decorated in each case with six radiating panels of incised chevrons, one of the smaller bosses partly overlying the Ottoman ownership mark, the shield bordered by numerous round-headed lining-rivets (six missing, the remainder replaced) and fitted at its rear with fragmentary remains of later leather enarmes (showing some losses at the edges, a patched repair, three minor perforations and pitting overall) 52.6cm.; 20N in diameter
Inv. no. A106.
The shield is proved by its ownership mark to have derived from the Ottoman Turkish arsenal, housed, until recent times, in the church of Hagia Eirene (St Irene), Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). Although a substantial part of its original contents remain in Istanbul today as part of the city’s Askeri Müze (Military Museum), many pieces were sold from the arsenal in the 19th and 20th centuries, and found their way into European and American collections. Photographs of the arsenal taken in its original home in 1889 show it to have originally included many shields of the kind catalogued here (see S. W. Pyhrr 2007, figs 3-6 &, 13). A finely decorated example is now to be seen in the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds (see H. R. Robinson 1967,
pl. X, A), while another was exhibited in Paris in 1988 (see H. Ricketts & P. Missilier 1988, Cat. No. 3, p. 154, ill.).
