Boxwood cylindrical powder flask, one side carved with a lion hunt, the other with a large rosette. English, ca. 1660.

Carved circular boxwood powder flask with moulded metal spout and spring catch

This object formed part of the collections of Ralph Bernal M.P. (1784 - 1854), which were sold by Christie, Mason and Woods in 1855 and bought by the South Kensington Musem for £12 - 10 s.

Provenance

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 religion 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 564 people enslaved on Bernal's estates who were classed by the British government as his 'property'. They included people like Antora, and her son Edward, who in August 1834 was around five years old (The National Archives, T 71/49). 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' (Christie and Manson, 1855). 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 object was described as "17th century" when acquired, and the tudor rose indicates English workmanship.

Powder flasks were either made of hollowed-out cattle horns or wood such burr maple or boxwood, as in this case, and their purpose was to protect gun powder from water or fire. It formerly belonged to Ralph Bernal (1784 - 1854), a barrister who became an M.P. on inheriting a large property in the West Indies and took an active interest in the arts and newly formed museums. A large number of items from his collections were acquired by this museum a year after his death.

2219-1855