Finest 16th to 18th Century German Powder Flasks - a Unique Collection!

[Matchlock]

This powder flask literally beats everything - made by Caspar Spät, who chiseled and gilt the iron, and the gun stockmaker Hieronymus Borstorffer; both artisans lived in Munich and worked together, especially between ca. 1630 and 1637, when Borstorffer is no longer recorded.

The form of this flask exactly corresponds to the butt stock of a wheellock musket and other accouterments all decorated en suite, which it was part of originally.
That gun and some of its original accouterments still exist. The author will add more on them soon.

Although retaining the characteristic North Italian shape of butt stocks evolved in ca. 1570, and copied in Germany from ca. 1590 to 1600, this fine flask and the gun it belonged cannot have been made before ca. 1630. As is often the case with highly decorated arms for the nobility, they were ordered, and made, in an obsolete style of military weapons typical of a period 20-40 years ago.