CALIVERMAN's Powder Flasks and Their Leather Frogs, Nuremberg, ca. 1580-1620

[Martin Moser]

Thanks for posting, Marcus and Michael! It is amazing what can be done with leather and sad at the same time to think that many of these skills are lost to us now ...

[Matchlock]

Back to the roots of my thread: flasks for calivermen.

Here is a good sample, and one of the few that were obviously not made and engraved in Nuremberg; the top mount is hinged to fold out for easy refills, which is highly unusual.
It may be French and is dated 1597.
The style of engraving is very similar to that on the flask from post #23, which is attributed to Flanders, and certainly the template was the same in both cases.

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[Matchlock]

A horn body for a caliverman's flask, French, ca. 1590-1600, the central female figure meant as the impersonation of war and inscribed in Old French La Guere (sic!). the original iron mounts and the reverse frog hook all missing, the nozzle and bottom plate later horn replacements.
The engraving follows the identical pattern as the flask in the previous post.

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[Matchlock]

Not a musketeer's flask, as the dealer thought, but that of a caliverman, ca. 1590-1600, in nicely patinated condition, and retaining some bluing on the iron mounts.
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[Matchlock]

A Nuremberg made and engraved flask of flattened cowhorn, ca. 1600, sold Hermann Historica, Munich, 18 Oct 2006.
This decoration is the well-known intertwined foliage that all Nurembeg workshops used as a pattern.
The blackened mounts finely convey a nice contrast to the white horn body which of course the artist originally intended. This is why a flask from this series with its iron mounts polished bright has lost all its charms.

m

[Matchlock]

Here is a caliverman's flask I photographed 30 years ago in the reserve collection of the St.-Annen-Museum Lübeck, Lower Saxony, Germany.
The obverse and small sides of the wooden body are profusely carved with scales.
Following the usual formal criteria, a date of 'ca. 1600 to early 17th century' would seem appropriate. However, a 'military' wheellock musket, the lock struck with the Suhl proof mark SVL and the octagonal barrel retaining its original bluing, and the whole gun datable to ca. 1640, features a stock carved in exactly the same manner. It is preserved in the reserve collection of the Gäubodenmuseum of Straubing, Lower Bavaria, and would go perfectly well with the flask stylistically. Thus I am prone to assign the same date to this flask, making it the latest of its kind known to me, from the 'heyday' of the horrible Thirty Years War.

Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

A very good Nuremberg made caliverman's flask, the flattened cow horn body engraved with a characteristic scene all'antica, probably depicting Heracles and the Nemeic lion, the reverse inscribed 'I. Collone WITELSBACH', spelled with a doubling tilde above the n and T respectively, and referring to its provenance, the former Straubing arsenal of the Dukes (German: Herzöge) of Wittelsbach.
The belt hook and spring loaded nozzle cap are both missing.

Please note the crisp and highly contrasted state of preservation of the engraving. It is this perfectly retained original condition that actually separates the wheat from the chaff when a piece is chosen to enter a collection!
Take a few minutes and search the engraved cow horn flasks posted in this thread, just concentrating on the craftsmanship of their engraving and their state of preservation!

I took these photographs 25 years ago in the reserve collection of the Gäubodenmuseum of the City of Straubing, Lower Bavaria.


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