New Lubieszow 1577 book

Salve,
last month I finished the series of plates for the new edition of '' Lubieszów 17 IV 1577'' (the battle of Lubieszow 17th April 1577) written, or re-written by Radek Sikora.

The new edition (the 1st one was published by Infort Editions in 2007) is to be published by Erica has been updated with more primary sources,  especially a Latin source first time translated into Polish,  and other stuff (I admit I have not read this new one yet), and will contain some 26 black and white plates drawn by yours truly with the Gdansk and Royal soldiers (some plates consist of the older illustrations already published in 2007 but remastered and with additional drawings or details from period prints on each plate).
 The battle is famous in the history of the winged hussars, but also in the history of the Polish-Hungarian hajduk infantry.

I am not sure when the book will be released in Poland,  it was supposed to have been released on or about the battle anniversary - April 17,  but it may be delayed. I will share the info about the release date as soon as I will have known it.

also my never-ending Ottoman delil sketch, a version in progress of sorts

enjoy
ps
The Coptic Christians in Egypt were murderously attacked last Sunday which was the Palm Sunday. US and EU media   etc offered little if any mention about the atrocity carried out by the Daesh/ISIS and their henchmen.
Piers Morgan posed a question, on Fox News, why the coverage was so timid

Martorell's dextrarius opertus

Salve,
again back to the Middle Ages, the most splendid XV century..
 this painter was active in the Kingdom of Aragon, more exactly in the County of Barcelona, under the name  Martorell.
He painted his 'Saint George Killing the Dragon' circa AD 1427-30.

Knightly saint sits high on the horse's back, his saddle moved forward, but most likely its design (invisible here wooden bars) allows for such arrangement without injuring the horse's withers and shoulders. After all these dextrarius stallions were awfully expensive and costly. The stallion appears to have been shod

I would like to bring your attention to some details of this moving and beautiful masterpiece of the Medieval art. The horse - spirited and powerful dextrarius opertus is snowy white gray stallion, trained for war and joust.

the saddle skirt of impeccable white-dyed leather, with pommel and cantle black. The pommel is extended downwards to protect the thighs and knee.

gilded stirrups and rowel spurs, stirrup leather also white, note the textile (flax or hemp) cinch.

amazingly elaborate bit - a double-reins gilded curb bit, with gilded chain connecting the shanks with lower rein (to prevent enemy from slashing the reins). also very elaborate adornment of the tack plainly visible to be admired

beautiful bridle, the forelock tied in the most ancient tradition

the high, rounded pommel - we see the way Aragonese knights might have adorned their saddles with studs

the rounded cantle to give support for the hips etc during the lance attack - we see here that the knight rode high in the saddle, almost standing, good position for lance play etc

enjoy
ps
 this piece of journalistic fraud and excrement comes from the Spanish leftist the New York Times-like daily el Pais -  ergo, in January 2017 (70 years too late perhaps) Polish historians (IPN) finally released the list of the German employer's guards at the Auschwitz Concentration Camps Complex and since the guards are almost all German (they did not publish the Ukrainian guards list), gee! surprise!, then this Spanish writer (and his publishers and editors) complains that Poland is trying to rewrite[sic!] her history.
I mean, the cheek on this 'motherflower' and his editors and publishers... brushing away the KL Auschiwitz SS guard list and rapidly moving to the German occupied Poland's complicity (alleged and ascribed to some of the Polish citizens from within the pre-1939 borders) in the Holocaust, mostly by quoting the two most revisionist and fraudulent 'expat 'historians' Grabowski and Gross.
The Polish complicity with the Hitler's Germany was the Stalin invention, and after the war it was the West Germany Intelligence and Propaganda Services that adopted and expanded  these Stalinist concepts, adding the false idea of the "Polish concentration camps.'
 The American media and politicians have used this injurious and completely false term, including ex-president Barrack Hussein Obama. Shame on him and all of them.

major German camps in occupied Europe

 Least we forget the Medieval states (Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon) of modern Spain sponsored their own 'Holocausts' back in a day - but mostly by forced conversions eg the 'massacres' in Kigdom of Castile of 1391 in this scholarly article. Aragon 1391 events by the same author Norman Roth,  also the Expulsion of 1492 and so on.

Henry Farny's Indian horses

Salve,
I  bought, from Amazon, the 1970s album devoted to life and works of Henry Farny, French-American painter, who depicted the vanishing Plains Indians. By 'vanishing' I mean the horse-warriors of the Great Plains who in Farny's day had been recently and forcefully brought to fixed reservations, their horse herds removed from them, bison herds killed off, and thus these nomads were grounded, for ever, in their meager and deteriorating conditions.

From the 1912 Cincinnati  Queen issue - p 449-50

Farny was very precise in his depiction of the Indian ponies (horses) and their riders, thus I would like to share with you some of the paintings collected from Wiki Commons.
Note that the horses are very lean and rather small, similar to the ones depicted by Charles Russell.

Also, the encampments represent the 1880s and late periods of the reservation life, when the tents aka teepees were  getting smalled, their bison hide covers were giving way to the government issued canvass, thus the size of the tent poles was smaller and so on.

enjoy

Maestro dell'Osservanza aka Sano di Pietro's Santo Giorgio

Salve,
 back to the XV century art and portrayal of the riding equipment.
In this Gothic painting we have a curb-bit, full horse horse harness and typical knightly war saddle of the period.

it is San Giorgio (Saint George) and the dragon from the Provenzano  Museo Diocesano in Siena, Italia.
Painted by the master of  the Observance Triptych, lately determined to be a painter of the Sienese School Sano di Pietro.

dextrarius opertus - gray war charger, with free flowing mane and tail, with  feathered fetlocks

large-shanked curb-bit, the bridle has no browband, otherwise it is dyed vivd red and studded with metal buttons (gold?)

the breastplate has the heraldic device in the center- the Saint George coat of arms

gilded stirrups & gilded long rowel spurs

I wonder if the way the Saint-knight is holding the bridle reins - palm downwards, only fingers are holding the loose rein -   may indicate that this is the XV century depiction of neck-reining method and we see here a horse trained in neck-reining?

enjoy

Vrancx - winged horse

Salve,
let us hope the winter is over, but feeling a bit sinister  I would like to return to the winter pleasures  of the olden days, as these scenes were painted by our good Flemish friend Sebastian Vrancx.

ergo, Master Sebastian painted more than a few of canvasses showing Low Countries citizens engaging in some simple and others more complex  winter pleasures, including the art of driving a horse-draw sleigh.
It appears from the images that driving was done on ice a lot,  since very little snow covered the landscape of the cities and towns (when compared with the Central and Eastern Europe of the XVII century) and perhaps driving over the frozen canals was quite a pleasure and thrill - the British historian Simon Schama's  book 'The Embarrassment of Riches' provides plentiful  information on the daily lives and pleasures of the citizen and visitors in the Low Countries during that period (caveat! be forewarned - :) -   Daniel Snowman (2004),  "Simon Schama". History Today. 54 (7): 34-36, wrote about Schama's writing that it was "packed with evocative detail: rich fruit cakes crammed with raisins, currants, nuts and glacé cherries all.")

I especially like this 'winged' horse

'taken' from this canvass

 The harness used for the 'winged horse' looks a bit like the Old Polish arrangement. Perhaps one of the traders brought it back from Gdańsk while on the trading mission in the Baltic port.

enjoy

Spring & Nowruz

Zaroastrian eternal Bull (the Moon) and eternal Lion (the Sun)

Salve,
Spring has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere - finally  - :)
Marzanna has been drowned - :)

... happy New Year as it is Nowruz time!
Rustam, the hero

The Sogdians of Sogdiana

enjoy
ps
all pictures courtesy WikiCommons

Raffaelle Santi - early modern curb bit

salve,
I admire Italian painting from XIV-XVII centuries, but especially so called high Renaissance painters like Raffaelle Santi.
But before going about his knightly Saint George paintings I would like to draw your attention to this painting (circa 1517) known as lo Spasimo di Sicilia, famous not only for being his masterwork, but because it had survived the shipwreck during the delivery (at least according to Vassari), was sold to Spanish  grandee a century later and had the dubious pleasure to have been looted by the French during the Peninsular War (the French Napoleonic 'collectors,' in the footsteps of the Swedish looters during the Northern Wars, and the Royal French during the wars of Louis XIV, were in fact forerunners of the Soviet and German systematic thievery of art objects during the World War II).

suffering of the Holy Mother during the Passion

 ad rem, the horses depicted in the canvass (well, as you can read, it is now canvass, but  Raffaelle originally painted it on wood and the French 'restorers' transfered it onto canvass in the XIX century, damaging the ground and causing irreparable injury to the masterpiece)

Jewish high priest's dark bay or black horse,  - Oriental bridle (perhaps) but the interesting feature is the very wide nose band with metal adornments. Very long shanks on the curb-bit, and the reins are also adorned with metal pieces, making it rather heavy (perhaps a happy union of protection from sword's slashing to to reins and fine art of beautifying of horse harness)

Roman offcial - Pontius Pilate perhaps - mounted on a neighing gray horse, as suitable for a commander. The bridle is complete, with its leather tanned what appears to be rose or vermilion. There is only one rein set, the curb-bit is long shanked, very late Medieval. The curb-bit chain is not visible, also the attachment of the cheek straps to the shanks is not visible.  The head of this horse is interesting in its conformation, very bull-like. More about this feature some other time.

Valete!