This sixteenth-century liturgical headdress is probably the most
famous piece of featherwork in the world. Brought to Austria
before 1575 by an unknown traveler, who had acquired it from an
unknown source in Mexico, it is once again on exhibit — after
long years of conservation work — at Vienna’s Museum für
Völkerkunde. The green plumes, of course, are those of 500-year-
old Resplendent Quetzals. The blues are the loveliest of Lovely
Cotinga feathers, and the headdress is also said to incorporate
feathers of Squirrel Cuckoos, kingfishers, and Roseate
Spoonbills. Whoever created this object, you can’t fault their
taste. This restoration is at least the second to have been
carried out since the headdress came to Vienna. Brought from
Schloss Ambras to the Belvedere in the early nineteenth century,
it was “discovered,” apparently in storage, by Ferdinand von
Hochstetter in the late 1870s. There was great puzzlement as to
just what it was, and the 1878 restoration ordered by
Hochstetter proceeded on the belief that