December 10-13, 2024 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/10/2024
By the beginning of the 19th century, military cocked hats had evolved from the tricornered shape of the mid-18th century to a bicorne form. The cocked hat would eventually culminate in the "chapeau de bras", a flat, collapsible form used by officers in the US Army as early as 1808, although not officially described until 1812. This superb, early 19th century American bicorne is very similar in form and dimensions to the cocked hat prescribed for the Regiment of Artillerists in 1804. In materials and trimmings it is very clearly of officer quality, probably artillery, general staff, or even US Navy, as it is trimmed with "yellow" (gold) looping and with gilded-brass cockade eagle and button. The cockade is of silk, and the hat is finished with hatter's plush, most likely also of silk. Silk hats were a new form just coming into vogue but would ultimately replace the more expensive beaver felt hat of the genteel by the latter half of the century. They were made by stretching a napped, silk or fur plush fabric or sometimes oiled silk over a body frame made from cheaper felt or stiffened muslin. "You may also buy some pasteboard and make a cocked hat", wrote a British officer to his brother, which would be covered with "oil-silk" and trimmed with "some broad ribbon for a cockade, and some broad stuff for binding. This particular military hat is the finest American example known to me and was long in the Don Troiani Collection, until acquired five years ago. It is discussed and illustrated on p. 87 of our first book collaboration, "Don Troiani's Soldiers in America, 1754-1865."(1998). The center of the back leaf is 7 7/8 in. H, while the front is 6 1/2 in., the sides 4 3/4 in. From side point to point, the bicorne measures 15 inches. The gold lace of the cockade loop is 9/16 in. wide and the gilt-brass button the same in diameter, the cockade eagle 15/16 L x 13/16 H. It remains with its lining completely intact, consisting of a glazed linen crown lining, with a leather sweat 2 1/4 inches wide encircling the interior crown at bottom. There is no evidence that this cocked hat was ever bound on its edges. CONDITION: Overall very good; some scattered, slight wear to brim edges, a few broken stitches on the leather sweat, and some edge wear to the outer body of the hat, particularly in direct front and rear.