Ottoman Carved Wood Gunpowder Flask w/ Shell Inlay

Near East, Ottoman Empire. A gunpowder flask carved from mocha-hued wood, its body swelling into a broad crescent that tapers to an upswept spout pierced for the charge. The exterior is worked in relief with incised bands framing a row of ring-and-dot rosettes, a motif repeated on the curved neck, and the underside retains inlaid elements, likely shell, set flush into shaped recesses. The open mouth once carried a fitted lid or stopper, now absent, and a rectangular seat cut at the shoulder shows where a suspension mount was attached. Flasks of this profile were slung at the belt of Ottoman irregular and infantry troops for charging muzzle-loading firearms; a janissary association has been suggested for this example, though nothing on the object confirms a specific unit. The ring-and-dot rosette, cut with a centering bit and a compass point, is one of the oldest and most widely diffused ornaments in Anatolian and Balkan woodwork, appearing on spoons, cradles, saddle furniture, and arms alike. Its persistence into the nineteenth century owes as much to its apotropaic reading, the eye that turns away the evil eye, as to the ease of cutting it. Powder containers in the Ottoman world were made in a wide range of materials: engraved brass and silver for court and officer use, cow horn and leather for the levies, and turned or carved wood for the great mass of provincial and irregular soldiery. The janissary corps, abolished by Mahmud II in 1826, was supplied through a mixture of state issue and private purchase, and surviving equipment of the rank and file is far more often plain hardwood of this kind than the presentation metalwork that fills museum cases. Item # 204567

Estimate:£94.59

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