Biographical Sketch 17 



this time onward the pursuit and study of armor occupied by far the greater part of his 

 time. With the consent of President Butler and the Trustees of Columbia University, he 

 retired from active duties there in order to devote practically his entire time to the 

 arduous task of building up the collections of armor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

 Almost every year he made long journeys in Europe ransacking every available corner for 

 these treasures. As a result of Dr. Dean's unceasing efforts, Mr. William H. Riggs in 

 1913 presented his great collection of armor to the Museum. This gift together with his 

 own personal gifts and loans to the collection, finally brought the collection of arms and 

 armor in the Metropolitan Museum to rank among the great ones of the world.' 



The history and authenticity of each piece were of course of the greatest importance, 

 and in connection with this side of the subject, Dean brought together an unrivalled 

 assemblage of documents, books, and other collateral evidence. His handbooks and brief 

 papers on arms and armor from 1903 to 1928 number about 137- Nearly all were sublima- 

 tions and digests from the vast material that he had accumulated and which lies unpub- 

 lished even today. 



Even a hasty perusal of these titles suggests the multitude of technical Hnes in which 

 Dean was expert. For to be successful both in preserving the purity of one's collection 

 and in purging it from dross and counterfeits one must for example learn to look for all 

 the little detailed earmarks of authenticated specimens as they vary in different countries 

 at different periods. One must further know or quickly ascertain who the grand seigneur- 

 was for whom the armor was designed; thus in the long run one will find it convenient 

 to be a sort of living ''Almanach de Gotha" for both Europe and Japan. One must next 

 learn to recognize or be able to identify the initials of the armorer, the small differences 

 which distinguished his work from that of others. One must have at least some first 

 hand experience as to the steps in the manufacture of the completed object, so one will 

 find it convenient to maintain a laboratory for the repair and reconstruction of the 

 thousand and one pieces that went into the whole equipment. Obviously no true student 

 of armor and arms would be content with inadequate notions of the ways in which each 

 piece was used in combat. 



A growing knowledge of the chronological sequence of types finally results in a 

 general concept of the evolution of arms and armor as it was even after the invention of 

 gunpowder drove them into new and strange reincarnations and vestigial remnants. 

 Here Dean's authentic knowledge of the ways of organic evolution gave him an immense 

 advantage over the mere historian. For example, his drawings of the evolution of various 

 hnes of helmets and pole arms in Europe strongly recall the phylogenetic tree of certain 

 groups of fossil cephalopods, for in both cases a certain very primitive and ancient pattern 

 gives rise to gradually diverging series which toward the end take on the "phylogerontic" 

 extremes that precede sudden extinction, through failure to meet new changes in the 

 environment. Some zoologists have objected to the stretching of the word "evolution" 



'Cf, "The Catalogue of Arms and Armor, including the William H. Riggs Donation. 1921." 



