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

[Matchlock]

Two trapezoid flasks with reverse-mounted belt hooks.
The one on the left of North Italian type, ca. 1550-60, the wooden body covered with blackened leather, and with highly figured iron mounts, the top mount fitted with a horizontal cut-off lever of characteristically early serpent-like zoomorphic shape;

The second, smaller, obviously from the large Nuremberg series of vast supplies to various armories, of 1577/8, the wooden body covered with black velvet, the edges with tinned iron reinforcements; the horizontal cut-off and spring missing from the top mount;
cf. two samples illustrated in the bottom attachments of post # 3, on the extreme left;

the original caps missing from both nozzles.

Both sold at auction: Sotheby's, from the Collections of the Royal House of Hanover, Oct. 5-15, 2005.

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