Combined Priming Flask and Wheel-Lock Spanner (c. 1600–1650): Art, History and Details

Combined Priming Flask and Wheel-Lock Spanner (c. 1600–1650) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Early firearms required many tools and accessories for their proper use and maintenance. This clever design fulfilled a dual purpose as a spanner and priming flask. Small containers like this one would hold fine-grain gunpowder used to set off (or prime) the main charge in the barrel. A spanner would be used to operate a wheel-lock mechanism that enabled a gun to fire. On the gun, the jaws of the lock clamped a piece of flint or pyrites designed to rub against the rough edge of the wheel projecting into the pan. The wheel was revolved by a tightly coiled spring wound by the spanner and released when the gun's trigger was pulled causing sparks to ignite the gunpowder in the breech.

Object facts

• Title: Combined Priming Flask and Wheel-Lock Spanner
• Date: c. 1600–1650
• Culture: Germany or Austria, first half of 17th Century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: horn with brass and steel mounts
• Dimensions: Overall: 18.1 x 5.7 cm (7 1/8 x 2 1/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.43

A detail from the museum

Many accessories that were used in hunting were made of the very animals that were to be hunted, this one here was made of horn.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. Vol. 4, 17th to 19th century and a few pieces of iron work. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], [1900-1915].
• Gilchrist, Helen Ives. A Catalogue of the Collection of Arms & Armor Presented to the Cleveland Museum of Art by Mr. and Mrs. John Long Severance; 1916-1923. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1924.
• Fliegel, Stephen N. Arms and Armor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Museum, 1998.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.