Beschreibung:

Rare rondache de parement pour la garde de Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, prince archevêque de Salzbourg (r. 1587-1612), Venise fin XVIe siècle. A rare Venetian parade shield made for the guard of Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, Prince Archbishop of Salzburg (r. 1587-1612), late 16th century. Convex and near-circular, constructed of wood covered with leather on each side, the outer face decorated with a translucent red lacquered central field highlighting a rich arabesque pattern of tooled and lacquered gilt scrolls entwined with leafy flowering tendrils, the tendril pattern impaling a series of shaped cartouches each filled with a flowering calyx, enclosing at the centre a gilt band of running foliage filled with a vacant strapwork cartouche on a green lacquered ground, with gilt outer border filled with a running pattern of flowers and with a black band encircling the rim, the detail within the entire scheme picked-out in yellow, pale blue, green and red, and the inner face fitted with a leather arm-pad and the forward enarm (with fragments of the rear enarm): on a modern internal wooden frame for display and conservation. H.: 59 cm - W.: 55.5 cm This shield is one of a series (with at least three variations recorded) made for the personal guard of Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau as Prince Archbishop. An inventory of the Princely residence taken in 1699 records three-hundred and ninety-eight gilt and painted shields; see the archive of the Stadtisches Museum Salzburg. Approximately seventy examples are preserved in the Carolina- Augusteum Museum in Salzburg. The Bavarian military occupation of Salzburg in 1809 brought about the transfer of a quantity of these shields to the main Zeughaus in Munich. Sales of the shields from Munich took place in the years following the First World War. As a consequence of these sales examples are now preserved in a wide range of institutional and private collections. Notable amongst these are the collection of the Princes von Liechtenstein (in which there are four in Schloss Vaduz, almost certainly a part of the historical collection), The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and The Art Institute of Chicago. The Turkish wars of the 16th century introduced the vogue for Ottoman style arms and armour throughout the Holy Roman Empire and in 1548 the Habsburg King Philip II of Spain was accompanied by a "Turkish" bodyguard for his ceremonial entry into the city of Milan. The taste for Turkish design is evidenced in the adoption of counterfeit Ottoman helmets for wear by the German and Hungarian light cavalry, an example of which is found in the Klingbeil collection. Similarly the style and decorative technique of the Salzburg shields displays strong Ottoman influence. In the 16th century Venice was known for decorated leather armour manufactured in the style and technique of contemporary Turkish bookbindings. See GRUBE E.J., Venetian Lacquer and Bookbindings of the 16th Century, in "Venice and the Islamic World 828-1797", Metropolitan Museumof Art Exhibition Catalogue, pp. 231-251, 2007, for a contemporary discussion of the Venetian technique of varnishing and gilding leather, published in Venice in 1589.