[Matchlock]

Hi Marcus,


I just noticed your thread and would like you to know that I am mighty proud of you, son!

You're sure doin' mighty fine!!!

I just wanted to add that the image you attached was taken in 1959, depicting the then exhibition array at the Wiener Waffenkammer, Kunsthistorisches Museum (The Vienna Arsenal of the Emperors belonging to the Habsburg family, and starting in the late 15th century as far as firearms are concerned).

I did extensive research and photo-documentary work there various times:
-http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ck+1540+emilia
post #3
- http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...lock+harquebus
posts #1 and 5

The stock painted green on the Nuremberg haquebut inv.no. A 68 is a 20th c. replacement including the wood, and so are the blue paint on one lock plate and the black coating on some barrels. All that was done before 1959, and after early 16th c. watercolors for the illustrated inventories (German: Maximilianische Zeugbücher) of the Habsburg arsenals and armories in Tyrol, and by order of Maximilian I. The artists were Bartholomäus Freisleben and Jörg Kölderer.
Sorry, Marcus, for killing your euphoria ...
Telling the truth though, is exactly what I have set out to do.
Of course the thruth concerning many museums is often hard to bear - for the people in charge.

In the 1960's and early 1970's, a horribly vandalizing and irreversibly destructive action of ACID CLEANING took place in the Vienna Hofburg carried out by the Vienna restorers, and under the leadership of Dr. Bruno Thomas.
Just a few years later, Bruno Thomas changed his curatorial opinion and had the re-coloring removed.

Remember: Bruno Thomas was an internationally renowned capacity, and one of the leading armor experts of his time. And there was not need at all for that hasty action; all those barrels were preserved in finest possible original patinated and stable condition, protected by a yellowish layer of olive oil for abot 450 years! Up to the 1960's when all of a sudden, acid destroyed all original traces of the hammer and the rotating polishing stone - because that was the way of the Late Medieval barrelsmiths used to finish such large pieces. And of course, they got painted with layer of red lead minium; this was done for both protective and decorative reasons.

This is why I cannot restrain myself from calling such actions 'Casting out devils by Beelzebub' (from the German proverb Den Teufel mit dem Beelzebub austreiben) - REPLACING ONE EVIL WITH ANOTHER.

All of us are nothing but humans, and failable. Each single time I failed, made a mistake or did wrong my conscience strictly kept reminding me, and holding me responsible. And I told the truth right away, confessed to what I had done and took the consequences.
Because I KNEW I was responsible. Hiding a failure never actually works, or pays.
This is why feel that everybody muster that courage and strength, and be held responsible.
Position and responsibilty are inseparable.
'Ask too much of one, and both will die'
(Willie Nelson, The End Of Understanding).
No understanding.
No longer.
No.


Those Maximilian style colors combining the red and the shining light green are characteristic of almost all items of arts and crafts of the Late Gothic/Early Renaissance period of style, ca. 1450-1530. I have mentioned several times that they were the basic colors typical of the Gothic period (German: die Grundfarben der Gotik).
On firearms, we find these two bright colors employed most often between from ca. 1480 to 1530. They are also called the Maximilian colors, for it was the Habsburg Ruler Maximilian I (22 March 1459 - 12 January 1519). He was King from 1486 - 1508, and crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire that latter year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximil..._Roman_Emperor

At the sundown of the Middle Ages, and the dawning of the Renaissance period finally including the countries north from the Italian border, which mostly were Austria and Germany, Maximilian supported and promoted craftsmen, artists and artisans alike, both decidedly and in a completely new and open manner.
The replaced and painted stock Vienna was done after watercolors in the illuminated inventories (German: Maximilianische Zeugbücher) of the Habsburg arsenals and armories in Tyrol, and by order of Maximilian I.
The artists were Bartholomäus Freisleben and Jörg Kölderer.

I reattached them once more adding my own and copyrighted photos of 4 November 2002.

You will remember that the short and round 'Maximilian' style haquebut barrel showing the characteristic swamped and crown shaped octagonal muzzle section (German: Maximilianischer Krönlein-Mündungskopf) originally was part of a large, and most probably Nuremberg wrought series from the turn of the 15th to to 16th century.

Backed up by the Maximlian arsenal inventories, most barrels from that series should be termed as having been tiller barrels, and originally wrought with a long rear iron socket for a wooden tiller stock (cf. attachments #4 and #5).
Only one of these wrought iron barrels seems to be have been illustrated fully stocked, though:
cf. attachment #9!
On the other hand, the inventories provide several instances of cast brass/bronze barrels stocked that way:
cf. last three attachments!


Obviously, most of those were removed in the early 16th century, for being as impractical as obsolete very soon.
The only unaltered specimens the author could ever indentify are:
- 1 piece in the storage rooms of the Gäubodenmuseum of Straubing, Lower Bavaria
- 6 stocked haquebuts all mounted tretaining their original sockets! were found in a walled-up room at Kronburg Castle near Memmingen, Suabia/Bavaria in 1953.
They must have been restocked in ca. 1520.
All of them were preserved in SINGLULAR, because LITERALLY (NOT virtually!) - UNTOUCHED ORIGINAL CONDITION!!! They could not have been touched for hundreds of years!

One of them is inThe Michael Trömner Collection:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...nburg+haquebut


Please cf. three of my threads:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/search...earchid=416270
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...nburg+haquebut
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...nburg+haquebut



A note to the moderators:
Our search button is not the best, to say the the last.
When I entered 'haquebut kronburg', this actual link was NOT shown:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...nburg+haquebut
The thread is on the Schloss Kronburg haquebut in my collection.

It only appeared upon entering 'bavarian haquebut kronburg' - in spite of my text in the thread actually reading 'Bavarian haquebut' and 'Schloss Kronburg"!

I have experienced the inferior 'quality' and malfunction of that button over the years ...
I therefore am most curious to read other members' experiences.


http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...barrels+passau











TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW - please hang on;
I will respond to you soon as well, Andi and Marcus.


Best,
Michl/Michael