Auctions Imperial 2018 Arms & Armor November
Lot 226:
Description
A form which evolved during the Greek Revolutionary era as an expression of patriotism. Composed of heavy silver, with 45 individual links and a buckle cast in relief and heightened with finely engraved detail overall in neoclassical shell-and-curlicue motifs, the buckle en suite, depicting a fully-modelled head of Nike, Goddess of Victory, represented as a young woman with a resolute gaze and flowing hair. Retains its original scarlet leather liner and paper tag inscribed, LORD BYRON’SILVER BELT / DR. S.G. HOWE COL / H. RICHARDS LOAN. Early 19th century. Liner with losses and worming throughout. Overall length 83.5cm. George Gordon Byron, Sixth Lord Byron, was England’s greatest Romantic Era poet. He led an adventurous, often dangerous, existence and at age 35 journeyed to Greece to join the revolution and fight the Ottomans. Given command over a brigade of Suliots, he was preparing an attack on the Ottoman stronghold of Lepanto, but died in Missolonghi on April 19, 1824. Byron’s passing was mourned throughout the world. He became a national hero to the Greeks and his renown as a poet grew in England, Europe and America. Samuel Gridley Howe M.D. (1801-1876,) noted American abolitionist, was so inspired by Lord Byron’s cause, that he sailed for Greece in 1824 with the intention of fighting by Byron’s side. Howe arrived just weeks after Byron succumbed to fever, nonetheless fighting for six years against the Ottomans at Missolonghi, Crete, and other locations, and assisting Byron’s close friend and protégé, Alexandros Mavrokordatos, among other Greek notables. Howe acquired Byron’s helmet, sword and a number of other military effects before returning to the U.S. in 1830; the helmet was repatriated to Greece in 1926, donated to the Ethnographic Museum, Athens (now the National Historical Museum) by Howe’s daughter, Maud Howe Elliot, which memorialized her father’s service to Greece as well. Howe’s eldest daughter, Laura Elizabeth Richards, celebrated American author, presented the belt to her son, Henry Howe Richards, at the beginning of the 20th century. The image of a portrait of Samuel Gridley Howe as a Greek freedom fighter, painted by John Elliot c. 1830, now housed at Brown University, is shown for reference only and is not included with this lot. Condition III
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