Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Arquebuse from the Museum of Castle in Nuremberg

Matchlock · 14th November 2013, 02:12 PM

An astonishingly naturalistic stone sculpture of about 1515, in the Marienkirche (St. Mary's Church) of Reutlingen, Swabia/Germany, picturing an arquebusier holding his short, crude and heavy arquebus which seems to be fitted with a matchlock mechanism - the angular match holder seems to be visible above the left-hand thumb of the arquebusier holding the match near the jaws of the match holder (serpentine), and just above the retangular pan! - , and a length of characteristically thick and early matchcord of hemp.

Please note the similarities between the arquebus of this sculpture and the real piece in Nuremberg; both specimen are quite contemporary in featuring the Late-Gothic style octagonal barrel, although the crude and rounded conifer wood stock of the Nuremberg gun clearly falls short of the perfectly sided elegance of the idealized stock shown in the sculpture.

No outline of a lockplate can be identified on the Reutlingen piece, so we may safely assume that all the single parts of the mechanism of the sculptured Reutlingen arquebus would have simply been nailed or clamped to the stock.
The Nuremberg piece, on the onther hand, is interesting for showing some areas of heavy worm damage and surface losses on the stock. One of these areas is situated on the left-hand side of the stock, opposite of the right-hand side touch hole which is crudely molded to form a primiitive pan. So there is no chance of attributing that worm damage to the fact that originially there was a lock mechanism with a long curved leaf spring nailed to the right-hand side of the stock ...

Best,
Michael

14th November 2013, 02:12 PM	#6
Matchlock (deceased) Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking Posts: 4,310	An astonishingly naturalistic stone sculpture of about 1515, in the Marienkirche (St. Mary's Church) of Reutlingen, Swabia/Germany, picturing an arquebusier holding his short, crude and heavy arquebus which seems to be fitted with a matchlock mechanism - the angular match holder seems to be visible above the left-hand thumb of the arquebusier holding the match near the jaws of the match holder (serpentine), and just above the retangular pan! - , and a length of characteristically thick and early matchcord of hemp. Please note the similarities between the arquebus of this sculpture and the real piece in Nuremberg; both specimen are quite contemporary in featuring the Late-Gothic style octagonal barrel, although the crude and rounded conifer wood stock of the Nuremberg gun clearly falls short of the perfectly sided elegance of the idealized stock shown in the sculpture. No outline of a lockplate can be identified on the Reutlingen piece, so we may safely assume that all the single parts of the mechanism of the sculptured Reutlingen arquebus would have simply been nailed or clamped to the stock. The Nuremberg piece, on the onther hand, is interesting for showing some areas of heavy worm damage and surface losses on the stock. One of these areas is situated on the left-hand side of the stock, opposite of the right-hand side touch hole which is crudely molded to form a primiitive pan. So there is no chance of attributing that worm damage to the fact that originially there was a lock mechanism with a long curved leaf spring nailed to the right-hand side of the stock ... Best, Michael Attached Images Last edited by Matchlock; 14th November 2013 at 11:23 PM.