1481 - the world's earliest dated handgun

[Matchlock]

As some of you may have observed, the barrel - underneath a ca. 18th/19th coat of black conserving lacquer - retains its original red lead (minium) painted 500 year old surface. You can see traces of it in places where the black paint has been scratched off.

I am presently pondering over taking the later black paint off, either partially or completely, to let the piece shine in its pristine colorful Gothic glory after hundreds of years again ... Anyway, it has been with me in this condition for 30 years.

Michael

[Spiridonov]

Originally Posted by Matchlock

As some of you may have observed, the barrel - underneath a ca. 18th/19th coat of black conserving lacquer - retains its original red lead (minium) painted 500 year old surface. You can see traces of it in places where the black paint has been scratched off.

I am presently pondering over taking the later black paint off, either partially or completely, to let the piece shine in its pristine colorful Gothic glory after hundreds of years again ... Anyway, it has been with me in this condition for 30 years.

Michael

Impressively! was it red? I have understood correctly? Is the patina(black scale (Fe3O4)) or cleared Metal under a red paint? Whether the first coat before painting has been put?

[Matchlock]

It is red beneath the black lacquer!

There seem to be only a few places of cleaned white iron.

With the black taken off it should look more or less like a barrel in the Germanisches National Museum Nuremberg; images attached (posted here before).

The barrel in Nuremberg is the remaining part of a tiller/stick haquebut, wrought iron, hexagonal (not octagonal), with changing sides at the middle and a punched decorative lozenge pattern on the heavily swamped and reinforced muzzle head; made in Nuremberg, ca. 1460's.

Its provenance is the famos Hohenaschau Castle in Upper Bavaria; I am proud to say that there is a matchlock musket dated 1633 in my collection that also came from Schloss Hohenaschau. In the 1880's it was in the collection of Heinrich von Hefner-Alteneck, the first director of the then newly founded Bavarian National Museum.

I do not have the exact measurements of this haquebut barrel but I should assume it is about 75-80 cm long and quite a heavy piece.

Best,
Michael

[Spiridonov]

Was the paint made of minium or cinnabar on you arquebese? It was mixed by linen oil or eggs?

[Spiridonov]

This barrel was painted too:

[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by Spiridonov

Was the paint made of minium or cinnabar on you arquebese? It was mixed by linen oil or eggs?

It is minium (red lead), as I stated; nothing is known about the mixture.

m

[fernando]

Fantastic imaculate pieces, Michael.
Say Alexander, that excelent example you posted; is the stock original or a modern reproduction?
And the iron bands and hook; are they from the period?
Fernando

[Matchlock]

Hi Fernando,

I am afraid the whole piece that Alexander posted is a modern copy. There is one rather similar in the Military Museum Prague and this one, in my eyes, is a copy too.

Best,
Michael