Powder Flask, circular carved ivory with metal mounts, with a lion and bear hunt, Germany, ca. 1650

Circular carved in relief, with a lion and a bear hunt on the front. A lion attacks a man, and dogs attack a bear. In the centre an unidentified escutcheon of arms with crests and mantling. On the back is a turned rosette.

Acquired from the Bernal Collection at Christie's, London, probably on 27 March 1855, lot 2354.

Ralph Bernal (1783–1854) was a renowned collector and objects from his collection are now in museums across the world, including the V&A. He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family of Spanish descent, but was baptised into the Christian faith at the age of 22. Bernal studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and subsequently became a prominent Whig politician. He built a reputation for himself as a man of taste and culture through the collection he amassed and later in life he became the president of the British Archaeological Society. Yet the main source of income which enabled him to do this was the profits from enslaved labour.
In 1811, Bernal inherited three sugar plantations in Jamaica, where over 500 people were eventually enslaved. Almost immediately, he began collecting works of art and antiquities. After the emancipation of those enslaved in the British Caribbean in the 1830s, made possible in part by acts of their own resistance, Bernal was awarded ‘compensation’ of more than £11,450 (equivalent to over £1.5 million today). This was for the loss of income projected to have come from 564 people enslaved on his estates. These included people like Antora, and her son Edward, who in August 1834 was around five years old (*citation*). Receiving the money appears to have led to an escalation of Bernal’s collecting.
When Bernal died in 1855, he was celebrated for ‘the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge’ (*citation*). His collection was dispersed in a major auction during which the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House, which later became the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A), was the biggest single buyer.

This circular ivory powder flask was made by an unknown artist in Germany in the 17th century. Powderflasks are portable containers of wood, horn, metal, leather or ceramic used to hold the priming powder or gunpowder for firearms. They normally terminated in a metal nozzle which also served as a powder measure, closed by a plug or spring cap, and are often highly decorated.

The present piece is carved in relief on the front with hunting scenes; a lion attacks a man, and dogs attack a bear. In the centre is an unidentified coat of arms, perhaps added later. On the back is a turned rosette. This ivory is in the tradition of the works of Johann Michael Maucher (1645-after 1690), although the carving is somewhat cruder. A similar work is in the Städtisches Museum, Schwäbisch Gmünd.

2220-1855