A FINE AND RARE GOTHIC CROSSBOW with robust composite bow covered with birch bark overlaid with paper (now incomplete) painted in white with a diaper pattern of numerous small dots and a pattern of scrolling vines along the centre of the front edge, all on a black ground, retained by cords and fitted with oval blackened iron stirrup at the front, also retained by cords, straight beech stock swelling towards the middle and inlaid with shaped flat dark horn plaques (minor losses) and with white horn along the top edge, staghorn nut turning on a later cord pivot, two iron lugs for a cranequin, and curved iron trigger-lever (perhaps associated), late 15th Century | Christie's

Lot 146

146

A FINE AND RARE GOTHIC CROSSBOW with robust composite bow covered with birch bark overlaid with paper (now incomplete) painted in white with a diaper pattern of numerous small dots and a pattern of scrolling vines along the centre of the front edge, all on a black ground, retained by cords and fitted with oval blackened iron stirrup at the front, also retained by cords, straight beech stock swelling towards the middle and inlaid with shaped flat dark horn plaques (minor losses) and with white horn along the top edge, staghorn nut turning on a later cord pivot, two iron lugs for a cranequin, and curved iron trigger-lever (perhaps associated), late 15th Century

Details

A FINE AND RARE GOTHIC CROSSBOW with robust composite bow covered with birch bark overlaid with paper (now incomplete) painted in white with a diaper pattern of numerous small dots and a pattern of scrolling vines along the centre of the front edge, all on a black ground, retained by cords and fitted with oval blackened iron stirrup at the front, also retained by cords, straight beech stock swelling towards the middle and inlaid with shaped flat dark horn plaques (minor losses) and with white horn along the top edge, staghorn nut turning on a later cord pivot, two iron lugs for a cranequin, and curved iron trigger-lever (perhaps associated), late 15th Century
30¾in.

Lot Essay

Cf. a crossbow with similar decoration on the bow in the Kretzschmar von Kienbusch Collection, Philadelphia, No. 627, plate CXXXVI

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