Samurai Helmet

Russet iron unique samurai helmet (tetsu sabiji kawari-bachi kabuto). Seven individual plates combine to form one decorative front plate which extends beyond the top of the crown with a gentle backward bend. The front plate also possesses three columns of twenty eight thin, pointed rivets, totaling eighty four. An elaborately embossed visor (mabizashi) featuring a central, five-petaled flower with sinuous ivy emerging from the left and right sides is attached to the helmet bowl with seven small rivets. A metal ring protrudes from the backmost plate where a decorative, faded orange, silk bow (agemaki) hangs. The orange helmet lining (ukebari) is intact. The original orange helmet cord hangs from loops along the lining to secure the helmet to the mask.

A five lame, hineno-jikoro style neck guard (shikoro) is attached to the helmet bowl with four black rivets with chrysanthemum base washers. Lames are of solid iron coated with black lacquer and slightly outturned edges. Dark blue silk lacing connects one lame to another in the kebiki-odoshi style. The bottom lame has a lower row of contrasting, orange crosslaces and an upper row of tweed lacing that continues along the front edges of the upper four lames. Two forward-facing wings (fukigaeshi) emerge from the top lame of the neck guard, both embossed with a crest of a paulownia leaf. It is signed by Myochin Mitsuhisa (early to mid Edo period) of the Unkai Myochin armor makers from Kaga.