An Etched Cranequin for Spanning a Crossbow, dated 1582

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Item ref: 3189

  • Germany or Switzerland
  • Steel, copper alloy, wood
  • 39 x 10 x 4 cm

Provenance:

Private collection, Europe

A cranequin bearing the same alloy-lined mark and dated 1556 is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (07.24.48b). The mark, in a shield, a rampant rooster with a pentagram under the raised leg (Neue Støckel 7572), is recorded on a cranequin dated as early as 1531, in the Kurpfälzisches Museum, Heidelberg. The latest recorded example is on a cranequin in the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, which in being dated 1584 accords with the present example. At least nine more examples bearing this mark exist in museum collections, variously dated across the intervening decades, although only four are known to be decorated.

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