Earliest Arquebusier's and Musketeer's Trapezoidal Powder Flasks, ca. 1530-1590

[Matchlock]

Jacob de Gheyn's musketeer filling the appropriate portion of powder from one of his bandolier flasks into the barrel of his musket, 1608.

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[Matchlock]

An almost identical trapezoid Nuremberg flask, the body covered with black velvet while in the case of my specimen it is perfect mdnight-blue (!, see images in post #21), was sold in one lot together with a remarkable North Italian/Austrian priming flask covered in hardened black leather featuring a good and detailed representation of what obviously seems to be a priest presenting the communion amidist a fight in front of a besieged town; at Christie's, London, Nov. 20, 1991 (author's photos).

The latter item was retaining an old brass inventory tag numbered 192 (possibly relating to the Princes of Liechtenstein Collection Schloss Vaduz), and the top mount was stamped with a modern row of invebtory cyphers.



The very same lot of two was resold at Bonhams, London, April 23, 2008.
Whoever bought them: feel complimented on acquiring some pretty good items of ca. 1570-1600!



Best,
m

[Matchlock]

Pieter Snayers (*1592 in Antwerp, + ca. 1667 in Brussels) was a famous and prolific painter of historic battle scenes.
Please note the battle formations as squares of musketeers, calivermen, pikemen etc., which were charateristic of that period of time.

From top:

- Battle of White Mountain near Prague, Nov. 8, 1620, the first big battle of the Thirty Years War (1618-48)

- Siege of the Fortress of Löwen near Vienna, with many close-ups of weapons and accouterments, such as matchlock muskets, musket rests, drums and lengths of matchcord kept in hand smoldering at both ends

- Siege of Vienna, June 5-12, 1619

- Battle of Lützen, Nov. 16, 1632, where the Swedish King Gustav Adolf died of musket wounds


Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

The fighting order at the Battle of Lützen, Nov. 6, 1632, of both the Swedish and Imperial forces.

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[Matchlock]

An Italo-French Late-Renaissance design for a trapezoid musketeers flask body, ca. 1590; The Met.

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[Matchlock]

This trapezoid flask, the wooden body originally covered with soft purple corduan leather or, in our instance, with purple velvet only the basic fabric of which is still present, the iron mounts and belt hook originally tinned, and originally fitted with a top lid linked on a delicate chain, was made in large numbers in Nuremberg in the 1550's and 1560's and is found in some samples in the famous Churburg collection, Schluderns, South Tyrol.
On unaltered samples, the belt hook is mounted askew at the rear.

A very fine instance covered with corduan leather and perfectly preseserved in all its original details, is in the author's colln., see attachment #21, the first, at the left rear side.



I enclosed an attachment of such flasks in the Churburg colln., and a representation of a corduan-leather maker from Chr. Weigel's Ständebuch.



Best,
m

[Matchlock]

An Austrian musketeer's flask, wooden body covered with leather and mounted with iron fittings, late 16th/early 17th c., damaged but in virtually 'untouched! condition.

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[Matchlock]

This Swiss sample of ca. 1600, the body covered with green velvet, and retaining its original woollen tassels, I photographed at an auction viewing.
The original top mount lid suspended from a small chain is missing, as is the case with most trapezoid flasks.

m

[Matchlock]

A nice sample, and in perfectly preserved original condition, ca. 1580.

[Matchlock]

Two large specimens of trapezoid musketeer's flasks partly retaining their tassels, in the reserveve collection of the City Museum Köln (Cologne), ca. 1570, the body of the one on the left covered with parchment.
The left one of the small flasks was for priming powder, ca. 1570-80, the other with the additional leather pouch belonged to the pistols and arquebuses of Saxon guardsmen of ca. 1560. The pouch was v´certainly not for balls but probably for reserve pyrites or small cleaning tools such as worms and scourers.

Author's photos, 1987.

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