Court powder-flask with a representation of the Battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths, French, ca 1600. Stag-horn, polished, carved, punched and blackened; silver mount. Height 17 cm, width 12 cm © Kunstkammer Georg Laue

Provenance: France, private collection

Note::This magnificent court powder-flask made of polished, carved and blackened stag-horn is distinguished by reliefs executed to a high standard on the side intended to be visible when it was worn as a practical hunting accessory: two muscular heroes of antiquity beat a Centaur with their clubs. A child is lying at the Centaur’s feet. At first glance this might seem to be represent a version of the mythical Heracles Slaying the Centaur Nessus. However, the presence of a second hero with a club and a child on the ground are unequivocal evidence that this interpretation is erroneous. The representation is more likely to be a Centauromachy, a mythical battle in which the Lapiths, supported by Argonauts Nestor, Peleus and Theseus, battle the Centaurs, a massacre that ended with the expulsion of the Centaurs from Thessaly.

The Musée du Louvre in Paris @museelouvre holds a small group of stag-horn powder-flasks decorated with similar reliefs and ornamentation on a blackened ground. Those powder-flasks date from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century and were made in France. At least, this provenance is attested by the powder-flask featuring a representation of Leda and the Swan, with the name of its original owner, one Nicolas Chevalier, engraved on the back. Stag-horn powder-flasks of particularly high quality were, in fact, made in France from the mid-sixteenth century and are notable for the excellence of the relief carving on them. This quality is exemplified by a powder-flask in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which is dated 1568 and bears the motto and coat of arms of an influential French aristocrat: Jacques de Silly (1513–1571).

The date proposed for the powder-flask discussed here, ca 1600, is based on comparison with two powder-flasks in the Louvre that reveal aesthetic and technical affinities with it; each bears a relief portrait medallion on a punch-stippled, blackened ground. The medallions frame a monarch crowned with a laurel wreath, whose facial features match those of Henri IV, who reigned as the only Protestant king of France from 1572 until he was assassinated in 1610.