Bit Boss
Not on view
Bit bosses were ornamental elements decorating both sides of a horse bit. The center of this boss is adorned with an openwork fleur-de-lis circled by a wreath, while the rim displays a frieze of palmettes.
This object belongs to a large group of bosses using a series of rims and centers combined in different ways. The exact center of production of these bosses is still unclear. If the motifs used are Italian, the scale of the production and the process of combining a series of rims and center recalls contemporary German practices. Some of them, however, are identical or very similar to bosses seen in several early 17th-century Netherlandish paintings, a likely origin for the manufacture of these objects.
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