17” height including the mail camail. Iron, the skull relief worked forming transverse brows and nose. The front decorated with eyes and brows completing the face. The top with a pair of curved, rounded horns. The front base with a broad upswept moustache which continues as a large inscription panel around the back. The field as seated nobles at court with foliage ground. Elongated pyramidal top spike, sliding nasal bar and butted link mail camail. The decoration enhanced with silver koftgari details throughout and near complete. The back with a gold koftgari cartouche panel with further gold decoration to the brows and forehead. A rare form of which no example is shown in the Glossary of the Construction Decoration and use of Arms and Armor (Stone). A single example from the Wallace Collection is shown in Pant, Vol. III pl. XII, dated A.H. 986 ( 1577 AD) and attributed to Hyderabad. That example, like this, has a butted link camail. It has a couplet of Persian poetry on the back corresponding to the inscription on the back of this example. That the author of Indian Arms and Armour was compelled to resort to an example in an English museum, despite the vast museum and royal collections available in India, speaks to the rarity of these helmets.
