How Much Is It Worth?
March 5, 2009
.Strong Suit: Armor in the Art MarketAs art prices fall, more collectors are looking for a white knight, preferably the kind designed in Milan with medieval tendencies
[SOURCE] Retrieved by Pat Darnell
By: Kelly Crow | Photograph by Jesse Frohman
In the mid-1500s, the farming town of Brunswick in northern Germany was ruled by a Catholic duke whose family tended to be very tall. Not content to merely tower over their enemies, Duke Heinrich and his three 6-foot-plus sons were also known to wear fearsome steel body armor etched with images of warrior heroes such as Hector, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great.
“Their armor was made to reflect their power,” says Peter Finer, a London dealer, who sold a 1549 field armor that belonged to the family, to a private American collector for just over $1 million two months ago. “It was important they didn’t look like peasants.”Perhaps the same could be said for J.P. Morgan, the banker who kept a 1543 helmet embossed with the head of Medusa on his desk, or William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper tycoon who amassed an antique armory in the 1920s.
Now, thanks to shifting tastes and fortunes, armor is again migrating from the foyers of European nobility and the descendants of American robber barons to newcomers in South America, India, Russia and the Middle East who want status symbols with values that won’t evaporate in the market downturn.
Last month at a Palm Beach, Fla., art fair, a private collector from Brazil paid Finer just under $100,000 for a 1640 Flemish armor made for a cavalry soldier. Elsewhere, chivalrous types are even ordering new armors from modern-day blacksmiths. New York sculptor Jeff Wasson has hammered out nine custom armors for clients over the past decade, with prices up to $20,000. Wasson says men typically ask for ornate styles from the 15th century, while a woman once requested the plainer Joan of Arc style. His armors are among the new crop suitable for real-life jousting.
