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Author Topic: Renaissance gun carriage colours?  (Read 1053 times)

Online OB

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  • Posts: 1801
Renaissance gun carriage colours?
« on: November 04, 2021, 12:03:20 PM »
I've just undercoated some Renaissance guns biggies and a couple of organ guns.  My default position is to paint the carriages red.  People seem to including me.  I've seen contemporary paintings that show red gun carriages so I guess that is the inspiration.

Have we any evidence of other colours being used?

Offline Radar

  • Librarian
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    • KeepYourPowderDry
Re: Renaissance gun carriage colours?
« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2021, 07:13:59 PM »
Have a look for the Arquebusier (Journal of the Pike and Shot Society) Vol XXXV 2017. Stephen Ede-Borrett wrote a short article "The Colour of English Ordinance during the  17th and Early 18th Centuries".

In a nutshell "we don't know", but paintings from Europe show dark brown  (bare wood?) and a colour akin to Austrian Napoleonic carriages. For Britain, there is the "fair ledd" reference (grey or red?). References for carriages being painted, but no colours. Firepower have a red painted carriage, but how much is original and how much is Victorian 'repair' isn't known.
www.keepyourpowderdry.co.uk gaming the British Civil Wars in 15mm, and home of the ECW travelogue - dreadful painting, mediocre prose

Offline Metternich

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2605
Re: Renaissance gun carriage colours?
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2021, 07:38:39 PM »
I guess the first question is what do you mean by Renaissance ?  Are you talking about the 16th century (e.g. Wars of Religion), or the 17th (e.g. Thirty Years War) ?
Unfortunately most of the contemporary pictorial representations are engraved black and white prints, which unless then colored, don't give us a clue.   And often only the bronze barrels of the cannon of this period are all that survives, without the carriages.  Red was certainly an easily obtainable paint color in the period (lead based paints, of course !), but some carriages could be left their natural color (perhaps varnished). That said:
  There is this contemporary colored print in the Folger Shakespeare library of a 16th century gun with a black painted carriage (note the wheels are natural, unpainted brown wood)
https://render.fineartamerica.com/images/images-profile-flow/400/images-medium-large-5/1-cannon-field-artillery-1607-folger-shakespeare-library.jpg

There is this contemporary 16th century French manuscript rendition of a 16th century un with what may be ocher painted  or light natural wood carriage and wheels
https://gallica.bnf.fr/iiif/ark:/12148/btv1b8427230m/f16/476,3088,1012,1302/1012,1302/0/native.jpg

Here are two colored prints from mid-to- late 16th century Italian manuscripts which seem to depict natural wood (brownish) gun carriages:

https://inlibris.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/img-bn51144-o.jpg

https://sothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a78fbc4/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1713+0+0/resize/2048x1754!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fmedia-desk%2F1f%2Fe9%2F6771ab104b2ab71a4545fc216ae0%2Fl19418-6mx2b-3.jpg

 We have evidence of Austrian artillery carriages being painted  yellow ochre  with black metal fittings at least from the mid-18th century, and that could be a continuation of an earlier practice.

Online OB

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1801
Re: Renaissance gun carriage colours?
« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2021, 07:44:53 PM »
Thank you both that is all very helpful.

 

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