"Anyone identify this helmet? French mounted arqubusier." Topic

Sculpting some French mounted arqubusiers, and have been given this image to work from, but exactly what type of helmet he's wearing has me foxed. Its some sort of morion/burgonet but I can't find any other similar examples, except perhaps either figure 82 or 120 in Heath's "Armies of the sixteenth century".
Any ideas?;

Ha,maybe you've found the "morion a banniere"?

TMP link

Clib i think this is a burgonet with plumes late italian wars french wars of religion period. favoured by french and spanish units check out essexminiatures 15mm code MER82 appears to be the exact figure, best wishes John

The caption says he's an argoulet, and most descriptions of argoulets suggest they wore morions, but at least one says "morion ou bourguignote"; and the peak on this helmet makes it look more like a burgonet than a morion to me. The only oddity is that it seems to have a tall cabasset-like skull instead of the high crest that would be more characteristic of a burgonet. Looks a bit like link to me.

Is it definitely a helmet and not a hat?

(Silly question probably, but I read somewhere the term 'Argoulet' at the time implied Greek or Grecian and the French Argoulets were inspired by Greco-Albanian Stradiots, who seem to have worn … tall hats. The colour of the item too looks perhaps more like patterned cloth than metal?)

It was popular for certain types of helmets to be covered by cloth with velvet being the most common and popular. Today those cloth covers are missing as the cloth has rotted away or became meal for moths. Rare helmets in museum still have them though.

I think GurKhans helmet link is spot on for the probable type, original artist probably distorted the design a bit for unknown reason. Other parts of dress also show similar distortion or exaggeration, forexample his trunkhose which are extremly flattend and very wide compared to better images.

Yes, I think burgonet style. The cheek piece appears raised and may distort the appearance a bit. There may actually be a high crown which gives a morian like appearance.

There is an example here:

link

The third helmet shown

Silly question probably, but I read somewhere the term 'Argoulet' at the time implied Greek or Grecian and the French Argoulets were inspired by Greco-Albanian Stradiots, who seem to have worn … tall hats. The colour of the item too looks perhaps more like patterned cloth than metal?

The original argoulets may indeed have been easterners, but there are plenty of descriptions from the second half of the 16th century saying that by then they wore armour and helmets. The description at link is from a 17th-century book but is taken from a contemporary description of a muster in the 1550s:

Outre cela douze cens Arquebusiers a cheval, depuis ils les ont nommez Argoulets & maintenant Carabins, armez de jaques de mailles, ou de cuirasses, & de morion ou bourguignote, ayans l'arquebuse de trois pieds de long; invention Francoise.

Seems similar to this
link

Swampster, I think your example is even better having the cabasset like crown that GurKhan mentioned before and even wider cheek- pieces :-)

That last one's new to me!

clibinarium, what is the source of this painting?

Thanks, some very useful suggestions in here. I take the point that morions may have been more common.
As to the source; can't say as I was given the pic by the client. That said, google turned it up again and I suspect that it may be from something called,""Album Amicorum of a German Soldier" (may not be the original language title) 1595-1596, since the art style is pretty similar.
link

Thank you, clibinarium!

I concur with Gurkhan, looking at each of the component parts in isolation there are too many similarities