There is a painting "The Death of Saint Giles" (1427) by a Master Thomas, that has a very interesting drawing of a recurve bow. The bow seems to be double limbed, an extra limb directly behind the main limb. This might just be the artist trying to indicate motion of the bow limbs. Or is what it looks like, a double limbed bow? Any ideas on this? It can be seen at:

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/m ... garam.html

If you click on the image it will allow you to enlarge it up to 200%.

John Edgerton, Newark, Calfornia

Or, is it a poor perspective of bow with two limbs side by side, two weak hunting bows lashed together, or some other ingenuity.

If you examine the building in the background, you will see that it would be possible to argue that it was a poor perspective of a flat fronted building.

Is the man a renaissance painter? If not this might not be unlikely.

The information I have on it says it was painted in 1427.

John

I think it's just shows a bow with rather wide limbs, and that the painter had some trouble getting the perspective right. The nocks looks like regular nocks to me.

/Micke Dahlström
Stockholm LockbowSociety

Call me stupid if you like, but isn't this the infill laminate between a back ad a belly of different materials !.

It might well be the infill. But, that should then be one very heavy draw weight bow.

John

Also, did not most laminate bows of that period have a covering of some material to help waterproof the materials and glue? It that is the case, then one would not be able to see the back, core or belly.

John

Mike Hardman:

Micke D:


I dont know what this means, ie. what the painter intended.

But these painters did'nt bother about perspective, it apears in a 2D, sort of. The motif is important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(graphical)

Hi everybody.

If you look and read, I think it’s possible to reach a conclusion, assuming all the clues as facts:

- The origin of the painting being Slovakia and the date being 1427, would mean that probably, the bow type you would find there at that time would be closer to composite Magiar or Turkish type, rather than a “standartâ€Â

Did not most laminate bows of that period have a covering of some material to help waterproof the horn, sinew, wood and glue? If that is the case, then one would not be able to see the horn, sniew or wood because of the covering.

Still not sure what it is.

John



[quote="Carlos Freitas"]Hi everybody.

If you look and read, I think it’s possible to reach a conclusion, assuming all the clues as facts:

- The origin of the painting being Slovakia and the date being 1427, would mean that probably, the bow type you would find there at that time would be closer to composite Magiar or Turkish type, rather than a “standartâ€Â

John, it might be the case or not.

Not all bows would be painted. Some would only be varnished. The lower the rank of the user, the least decorated the bow would be.

But it can also just be the painter idea of on how a flat inside of a limb would look like.

The bow is not a longbow, so the "looks" of it are in line with a composite bow and a flat limb.

One last thing that might or might not be of importance. if you enlarge the picture, (and quality is not so good as to draw a final conclusion), you can see that the space in between the edges, looks solid rather than hollow, even if it's hard to tell.

The color is not so different from the background, but if it was hollow, you should "see through" and see at least a bit of the tree on the botom limb.

Again, it can be only one more case of the painter free artistic expression.

As in many other cases, we will probably never know.

Carlos Freitas

To me, it looks as if we are looking at two separate attempts to paint the bow, like the under painting has been exposed.

Separately, there were two common methods of protecting the limbs of composite bows, one was to cover the back and the edges of the laminations with leather or birch bark and the other was to completely cover the limbs. The former was common to the Turks, Mongols (including the Crimean Tatars), the Tibetans, the Koreans, and the Chinese. The latter was used by the Persians in the Qajar period and in parts of India.

There is another possibility and that is the Mongol habit of tying something between each siyah and the grip. Whether it is a spare bowstring or an aid for bracing the bow, I do not know. It is seen in paintings of Qubilai Qan hunting and in the Rashid ed-Din illustrated world history painting of Rustam being murdered by and slaying his brother. These are both fourteenth century paintings. The artist may have know of the device but not seen it on a drawn bow.

I've just bought the book "Reflexbogen, Geschichte & Herstellung" by Volker Alles.
And on page 256 there is a picture of an Osmannic (Turkish) bow with double limb.
The bow comes from "Jagd und Rüstkammer" in Vienna (inventory no. C92).
Ole Steen

Would it be possible to post a picture of it?

John

The bow is one of a small group of Ottoman bows. The limb is bifurcated laterally so that there are two tips on each limb sitting next to each other. As a design, it has several serious problems which are related to the potential twisting of the limbs when drawn. The type of string is also unknown. The tips are half sized duplicates of an ordinary Turkish bow limb with kasan and bash. It is extremely doubtful that this bow was ever in production because of manufacturing difficulties resulting from the problems of tillering such a complex structure.

The section of the book where this bow is illustrated has a number of errors of fact that make the bow appear more significant than it was. Using a tapestry of Charles V invading Algiers as evidence, the author asserts that the bow was used to shoot two arrows at once on two separate strings. The "Turkish" archers in the tapestry are not based on observation. They are shooting two arrows at a time from ordinary bows with single strings and using a Mediterranean release.

The book translated as "Arab Archery" does refer to shooting multiple arrows as an element of trick shooting, but this is clearly differentiated from regular shooting and was for displays not warfare.

If the double limbed bow was not so highly decorated, I would suggest that it might be for a stone bow. It may have been made purely to demonstrate the skill of the bowyer and presented to an important person.

Returning to the original image, I have looked at it again taking into account what Carlos wrote. I think that he may be right in that the painting may be an attempt to paint the bow showing part of the belly. The two lines of the limbs would then be the two edge strips of the back cover which protect the sides of the bow. The belly would be exposed black horn like buffalo. Horn could be waxed or varnished for protection against moisture or purely for a pleasing finish. Adam Karpowicz suggests varnishing in his book on Ottoman bows because if the belly horn needed to be adjusted (by scraping) there would be less work wasted than should the horn have been carefully polished to a mirror finish. Many Ottoman bows show adjustment by this type of scraping away of horn on the belly after manufacture had been completed. It may have been a method of tuning an old bow. It was certainly used to lighten the limbs of a bow to make it more efficient.