Full rerebraces enclosed the entire upper arm, with a hinge to allow them to be opened and straps and buckles to fasten them shut. Below the rerebrace was the elbow piece called a couter. The couter was small and conical, often shaped to a point, with a wing on the outer side as on the poleine, and with buckled straps to secure the arm harness snugly to the arm.

Ms. Figgis favors rich colors that bubble, ooze and marbleize as if alive. Her scenes . . . frequently feature daffy but spectral creatures and leering ghouls with top hats and canes. The art conservationist’s term “inherent vice” describes both the instability of the images and the general sense of the macabre.

I tried to get rid of my accent, my streetness,” he said.

In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence—an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy—an excessive nervous agitation.