Item ref: 1076
The armoury of the Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel and their successors, the Kings and Princes of Hanover, successively housed in the Wolfenbuttel Zeughaus, Schloss Blankenburg and Schloss Marienburg, Lower Saxony.
Of silk-embroidered fine chamois leather, fitted with a steel cantle. The bag formed of eight thin round panels of leather, sewn together all round and attached with decorative silk stitching for about two-thirds of their circumference to a narrow strip of leather forming the edge of the bag, the remaining third of the circumference being occupied by the cantle; the panels each sewn back-to-back to form four panels, two forming the outside panels and two forming dividers that separate the interior into three compartments, the upper third of the two interior dividers being sewn together with green silk and stiffened internally with ferrous wire and the upper third of the outer two panels being attached to the cantle with thick cotton or linen thread; attached to the insides of the outer panels, small leather pouches closed with leather drawstrings ending in green silk tassels; one side of the bag decorated in coloured silk embroidery with the British Royal Arms of the period 1714–1801 and the other side decorated in coloured silk embroidery with a hunting scene depicting a mounted huntsman, accompanied by two hounds, pursuing a stag, with trees in the foreground and background and birds flying and perched; the edge of the bag decorated in coloured silk with a continuous wavy train of foliage and flowers. The curved cantle in two parts, hinging at either end, intersecting one beneath the other and locking with a sprung press-stud fitted beside a double-knopped fixed suspender with a loop at the top intersecting with a loop fixed to the middle of a broad wide belt loop; through the belt loop passes a narrow belt of two strips of leather sewn back to back along their edges with coloured silk and decorated on both sides with a central wavy train within a scalloped outer border, the decoration formed on one side by blind sewing and on the other by sewn green silk; the belt fitted with a steel two-pronged buckle. The cantle painted on one side in the centre with the Welfen-Museum inventory number W.M. I. 297