A fine Nuremberg Bronze Hackbut Barrel c.1520

[Swordfish]

This is one of the rare bronze hackbut barrels with a mark that can be attributet with a high certainty to a specific gunfounder, in this case to Endres Pegnitzer the elder.
The barrel is formed in five sections divided by roped mouldings. The muzzle is roundet, the intermediate sections decagonal with an offset central section, the breech rectangular. The breech is painted in red with an old inventory number (Provenance!) of the armoury of the princes of Hohenzollern. In front of the breech it is struck with a maker's mark, a gothic 'P'.
In the elder literature the 'P' mark is often attributed to the barrel- smith Pögl in Styria which is clearly wrong,the Pögl carried on an iron- blacksmith but no bronze-foundry.
The mark must be attributed to Endres (Andreas) Pegnitzer in Nuremberg.

The present barrel is very similar at the muzzle and the and the changing sections to a falconet dated 1526 and signed E*P*G*M= Endres Pegnitzer Goß Mich=Endres Pegnitzer Cast Me, preserved at the castle Heidecksburg-Rudolstadt.The attribution is therefore safe.
Endres Pegnitzer was the son of a gun master in Nuremberg and is recorded there from 1504 until his death in 1554.
A near identical hackbut with 'P' mark and later stock is preserved in the arms collection at Veste Coburg.
A very similar example with original stock is in Matchlock's collection.(can you post again a picture of it?)
Dimensions: Length 90.3 cm; Bore:2.15 cm ; Weight: 13.7 kg

Best

[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by Swordfish

The present barrel is very similar at the muzzle and the and the changing sections to a falconet dated 1526 and signed E*P*G*M= Endres Pegnitzer Goß Mich=Endres Pegnitzer Cast Me, preserved at the castle Heidecksburg-Rudolstadt.The attribution is therefore safe.

I am afraid the atttribution is wrong as your barrel does not bear the EPGM signature cast in high relief and found on all true Pegnitzer barrels, including the big ones in Rudolstadt dated 1522 (two items) and 1526. Author's photos of them attached on top.

Furthermore, the stylistic criteria you cited are only characteristic of Nuremberg as a leading Early Renaissance center of arts and crafts, and among them weapons, not of an individual maker. Contemporary architectural columns, as I stated previously, were shaped just the same and barrels were formed according to their proportions.

On the contrary, the Gothic minuscule p mark struck (not cast) on your barrel should be attributed to Sebald II Behaim of Nuremberg, who is recorded to run a prolific foundry in Nuremberg from ca. 1502 until his death in 1534. His factory outputs reached up to 200 barrels per supply, and his mark is recorded as no. 4221, vol. II, p. 758 in the original edition of Johan F. Stockel's Handskydevaabens Bedommelse, 2 vols., 1938 and 1943, including the addition that it was only found struck on bronze barrels; Stockel sadly misinterpreted it as the mark of Peter Pögl in Thörl, Styria, but as you stated, Pögl, like his son Sebald, was a blacksmith, not a founder, and mainly active for Maximilian I's armories. In my collection is a fine and unusually heavy wrought-iron barrel struck with the minuscule p mark of Peter or Sebald Pögl, ca. 1490's-90. I posted it here before. Peter Pögl died in 1486.

Unfortunately this mark, like many others, was completely ignored by Eugene Heer in his 1978 re-edition Der neue Stockel, a three-volume work on the marks of gunsmiths and cranequin makers which is not worth a dime considering earliest weapons just because Heer ignored (by best) or spoilt Stockel's original and competent work. Even Sebald Behaims' date of death is given incorrectly by Heer as 1538 (instead of 1534).

I have done extensive research in earliest makers' marks for more than thirty years and can tell with authority that the minuscule p mark struck on various bronze barrels must be that of the Nuremberg founder Sebald II Behaim, whose name was of course pronounced Pehaim in his Franconian dialect, and who should not be confounded with his Nuremberg contemoprary, the engraver Hans Sebald Beham. My attribution is mainly based on the facts that this p mark is the only Nuremberg founder mark that consists of an initial letter and is otherwise unidentified. Thus Sebald Pehaim/Behaim is the only solution possible.

A similarly staged bronze wallgun barrel featuring Pehaim's mark, but restocked in the mid-17th c., is preserved in the collections at the Veste Coburg.


Attached at bottom are a couple of more Pehaim barrels, yours included, as well as the requested images of my heavy Nuremberg wallgun, ca. 1515-20, 35 kgs, probably founded by either Pehaim or Pegnitzer and uniquely retaining its original oaken full stock. The latter is quite unusual in that the long muzzle section (Mündungskopf) is partly stocked; it would have been typical of the Renaissance taste to leave the reinforced muzle section unstocked.
What I have not mentioned before: it is preserved complete together with its original wooden ramrod (wormed and repaired in places, rear end incomplete) retaining its blackened threaded iron finial (Setzerkopf) and the original scourer (Laufkrätzer)! The ramrod is seen resting on the left side of the heavy piece.
The wooden muzzle plug is old but associated.
The originally swiveling pan cover is missing from the barrel; it was broken into three separate parts when I bought it some 25 years ago.

The gun and ramrod were claimed by the previous owner to have been deaccessioned by the Princely Collections of Hohenlohe-Langenburg in Franconia in the 1960's. On attending their collections by special appointment I photographed two similar Nuremberg bronze wall pieces the better of which, dated 1525, I posted in the first thread on my huge piece, also containing additional information:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ronze+haquebut



Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

The rest of the images.

m

[Matchlock]

More images of my 35 kg wallgun (doppelter Doppelhaken).

m

[Matchlock]

Another barrel struck with the Pehaim mark, stylistically datable closely to ca. 1510 because of its lesser staging and the shorter muzzle section.
The pan cover is missing.

m

[Matchlock]

Concerning the red inventory no. on your barrel:

It has become a dubious tradition in the market to attribute any piece bearing a red inventory number to the Hohenzollern Collection, Schloss Sigmaringen, as this is renowned to be a top provenance. The expert at Bonhams was aware of this fact and wisely did not refer to it concerning this barrel.

It is true that many items were sold from that Princely Collection at various times, mainly between the two Word Wars and shortly after WW II.

I have been to Sigmaringen by special appointment 20 years ago on Monday when the collections were closed to the public, and did extensive research there. I was allowed to go behind the fences (there are fences two meters high indeed!) and handle and photograph each piece I liked! In return, I sort of 'updated' their 19th c. inventory - which was a bad bargain because it took me weeks ...

One of the results was: all Hohenzollern Sigmaringen items I remember bore two groups of numbers, a four-digit item no. plus an additional two-digit group number, e.g. 21 for 'matchlocks' (just an example), the latter stamped in red capital letters!
So sorry but three red digits are not enough to prove a Sigmaringen provenance.

In my collection is an extremely rare combined musket rest and pike, 2nd half 16th c., the haft retaining its well-made iron shoe and painted with two groups of Hohenzollern red inventory nos., including '50' for hafted weapons. I bought it from the former Zeughaus (armory) Überlingen/Bodensee some 20 years ago when the museum was in liquidation; the owner had acquired it directly from Schloss Sigmaringen in the 1950's.

Of course there are various other items with red inventory nos. in my collection as well but I would never claim them to come from Sigmaringen.


m