AN INDIAN STEEL HELMET (KHULA KHUD)
Northern India, 18th century

Of typical hemispherical shape, with a faceted spiky finial at the top, enhanced with rosette sprays framed within intertwined vegetal trellis, the gold-damascened (koftgari) steel fittings in the shape of stylised arabesques and decorated with vegetal and geometric designs, the plume holders and the mail now missing, 21cm diam.