Bär mit Flinte aus dem XVI. Jahrhundert
Unfortunately I’ve nothing to add to this picture of a 16th century bear with a musket, from (or formerly in?) the KHM in Vienna, (the Art History Museum). I can’t find a more current picture, so perhaps it hasn’t survived the 2oth century. MMcM found it here, in Die Kunst und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sammelwesens Volume 11 of Monographien des Kunstgewerbes by Julius von Schlosser. I think it was part of Rudolph II‘s Cabinet of Curiosities (kunst– or wunderkammer), possibly rescued by Joseph II, long after the Prague collection had been dispersed during the Thirty Years’ War.
Update: Thanks to the remarkable erudition of Language Hat and Bruessel (who found the appropriate passage in the Schlosser monograph–you just have to press Find: Pisam), I can tell you that aus”Pisam” refers not to a place, but is an explanation that the bottle is made from a musk-oil paste. It might possibly have been a snuff container. Somehow the duc du Berry is part of the story; I think merely that the kunstkammer contained some pieces that had belonged to him (not this one, which is too late).
Another Update: The full story of the bear and other similar bears is told by the art historian Studiolum at Poemas del rio Wang. As always, he has lovely pictures.
A Bad Guide 
(Note that if you’re in a country that won’t give you access to the book you can still get in to it by going to a proxy site, like here, where you paste in the url & press “SURF NOW!”).
Just FYI: Trend Micro anti-virus flags that website as dangerous. Don’t know if it’s hyperventilating, but it’s the first site it has so flagged since I installed it a couple of weeks ago.
In that case, you can find a different proxy here.
Bisam? Also spelled “Pisam” in earlier times; see here (p. 471 in Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch: Pfab(e)-pythagorisch, by Robert Ralph Anderson, Ulrich Goebel, and Oskar Reichmann).
Also labelled dangerous, I’ve no idea why, and it’s probably not, if you can use it okay. I only mention it just in case …
It would have been a fair adversary to the King of Spain.
Bisam? Also spelled “Pisam” in earlier times;
The things you guys know! That would work better if it was a muskrat, apparently. Do you think it might have been used as a scent bottle?
a fair adversary to the King of Spain.
Yes, of course! You should add the picture to your piece, Studiolum. It’s a Hapsburg bear.
Studiolum, thank you for the link for your bear story. I had read it when it first came out and found it just as great this time (especially all the Russian cartoons and the lubok).
Your translation of KHM is somewhat misleading: although the website http://www.khm.at/ acts as a portal for the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History), the Museum für Völkerkunde (Ethnology) and the Theater Museum, they are in fact three different entities in different locations. Presumably, if it’s still there, the bear would be in the Kunstkammer of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but that part is closed until the end of 2012 for refurbishment.
According to the quotation on this page http://www.archive.org/stream/diekunstundwunde00schluoft/diekunstundwunde00schluoft_djvu.txt , it was not a scent bottle per se, but covered with a paste made from Bisam, like LH says (presumably musc?)
musk
Thank you very much, Bruessel, I’ve amended the article.
I have read Schlosser’s text, but I cannot find out where it says that the bear was covered with musk/amber. On the contrary, it speaks about it like a container of such scents:
“Dagegen werden zahlreiche Parfums, Moschus, Ambra, Räuchenpulver erwähnt, die man in Gefäßen aufzubewahren liebte, denen die Gestalt von Vögeln … aber auch von Bären, Schafen oder der Königslilie gegeben war.”
True, in note 35 it adds:
“Soclhe Tierfiguren, mit wohlriechenden Pasten belegt, finden sich noch, von der alten Ambraser Sammlung her, im Wiener Hofmuseum: Bär mit Flinte aus dem XVI. Jahrhundert (s. die Figur im Texte).”
but here “belegt”, in my opinion, does not mean “covered” but rather “weighed” or “loaded”. As an art historian (and as a great fan of Wunderkammers) I have never heard about bottles covered and not filled with precious scents, especially with so costly ones like musk or amber.
However, I think that the term “aus Pisam” can also have another meaning. As it is the German translation of “amber”, as a name it can also be the translation of the Tyrolese castle of Ambras where this most famous Hapbsburg Wunderkammer was founded and kept for a long time.
I know the Imperial Collections in Vienna to a certain degree. I also worked there for a long period, but I have never seen this statuette/botlette. I’m going to go there in the next week, and then I will ask local researchers about it.
Well, I must say it’s wonderful to have such knowledgeable people commenting. I agree it seems peculiar to put the smell on the outside of a scent container, and it would be GREAT if you would ask about it in Vienna–thank you very much for making the suggestion. It’s an interesting idea that aus “Pisam” might refer to the castle–though it seems to be the only item with that description.
This is the passage I meant:
“Auch der Bär als Flintenschütze, „aus lauter Pisam, inwendig ganz golden, mit Diamant, Rubin und Perl verziert”, ist noch vorhanden, er gehört zu jenen Nippes, die mit wohlriechender Masse überzogen, schon im Mittelalter an den Höfen beliebt waren (s. o. Fig. 14). ”
From the expression “lauter Pisam”, it can be deduced that this does not mean the origin, but the material. Also, I think we’ve established Pisam means musk, which is not the same as amber. And “mit wohlriechender Masse überzogen” does mean covered by a fragrant mass. I have no expertise in this field, I am just translating what it says.
You are right. I have not arrived this far in the text, thinking that the first occurrence of the bear (and of the word Pisam) is the only one. In this case my suggestion fails, as Schlosser here explicitly says that the Nippe was covered with scent. A strange procedure. Just as strange as my having read Schlosser’s book some twenty years ago and absolutely not remembering this strange procedure.
In the 16th century the difference between amber and musk was not always clear, they are sometimes mixed or alternatively used in the popular literature on medicines. But the object’s being covered with Pisam – and being made in this sense aus Pisam – makes it unnecessary to link Pisam to the name of Ambras.
I’m curious of the – most probably 16th-century – source Schlosser is quoting here. It would be good to find something about it in the next week in the Hofbibliothek.
Studiolum, if it’s still there do take a picture!
I have no expertise in this field
…But you are a professional translator of German!
I will do so by all means. BTW if it exists, it must be also included in the catalogs of the imperial collections. I will try to trace it. Is there any special reason of your interest in this fascinating little animal?
“I have no expertise in this field”
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear, I meant antiques.
Is there any special reason of your interest in this fascinating little animal?
My interest was mostly aroused because this object was made in the sixteenth century but the humour is so much like today’s. It’s comparable to reading a fart joke in Chaucer–or the feeling you get from reading a remark in a novel, or seeing something in a film, and you think “Yes! That’s happened to me”. So if it does still exist I would like a better look at it, in colour.
I think “ambergris”, the perfume fixative from the sperm whale, must be meant here.
http://www.ambergris.co.nz/about.htm
“Amber” does not have any scent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber
I think Nijma must be right. True amber is a solid substance, made into jewellery, not ointments or perfumes.
In French, “plein”, literally ‘full’, can also mean ‘covered’ or simply ‘plenty’ in the appropriate context. Could there be a similar meaning extension in German? It does not make sense that a perfume container would have a perfumed substance outside it- perfume evaporates, so it would defeat the purpose to put it on the outside. One hears of statues being covered with perfume (in Indian rituals, for instance), but that is not supposed to be lasting.
“Some people swear by the sensual effects created by rubbing a piece of ambergris on the skin.” It’s supposed to be an aphrodisiac, release pheromones. That website sells pieces of it that have washed up on shore for $20 an ounce, perhaps it’s possible to carve it? The texture is described as being from “soft and sticky like melting tar” to “hard yet waxy” to “the texture of hard, dry clay”, and the odor from “fairly offensive” manure odor to “musky and having a sweet earthy aroma” if well seasoned.
http://www.ambergris.co.nz/identification.htm
Thank you for the link, Nijma. I only knew the name, but not what it was. “Ambergris” is from French ambregris meaning “grey amber”, and I can now see why it is called that.
Of course the word “verdegris” is unrelated.
Except for the “gris” part. “Verdegris” (vert-de-gris) is not a bright green but a muted, “greyed” green, or greenish grey.
Apparently not even the gris part.
Green of Greece, called in some places green of Spain.
Well, empty, there seems to be quite a choice of origins! Thank you for those links. It looks like I was misled by folk-etymology.
Yes, because gris is pig, in Norwegian.
“In French, “plein”, literally ‘full’, can also mean ‘covered’ or simply ‘plenty’ in the appropriate context. Could there be a similar meaning extension in German? ”
Well, in this case, the important expression is “mit … überzogen”, which is usually translated into French as “couvert de, enrobé de”, and the “über” part indicates that the material comes on top of everything else. So I don’t really think it can mean anything else. As I said, I know nothing about statuettes from the 16th century and I don’t dispute the strangeness of the object, but the German text is pretty clear.
gris is pig, in Norwegian.
In English “grice” or “grise” is a little pig, but the word is not widely known.
From a Scandinavian word. Icelandic? (Scroll down to 2.)
And don’t miss griskin.
I should be eating lunch, fortifying myself for an afternoon of work, not doing this. Here I go …
>Studiolum
« La algalia, parecida al almizcle, y ámbar gris están citados en “El Quijote” (I, 4 por ejemplo).”
“Solche Tierfiguren, mit wohlriechenden Pasten belegt
“mit wohlriechender Masse überzogen”
If the various renditions above of these German expressions sound a little strange:
that might be because nobody seems to have happened on the word “coated”, which is what “überzogen” means here (in other contexts it means “exaggerated” = overdrawn, here it means “drawn over”). A chocolate-covered cake, or cake with a chocolate glazing, is a Torte mit Schokoladenüberzug. A bear coated in musk is not unlike a stick of incense, except the bear was presumably not supposed to be ignited.
I almost wrote “doss stick” instead of stick of incense, but I can’t find “doss stick” in any dictionary. Am I imagining things ?
Joss stick?
That’s the one !
Thanks, Grumbly, yes, “coated”, that’s the word I was looking for.
Isn’t it peculiar that we all thought it sounded like a strange practice, whereas the problem was merely a strange word in this context, namely “covered”.
“Covered” is not even an exotic word, it’s just not “the right one”. Is anyone going to insist that language doesn’t shape our thoughts ? I know that’s an old, old discussion, but I find this example to be very striking – so many people just a hairsbreadth away from the right word for the right thought.
Studiolum has put up a most informative post on Poemas del río Wang.
Now maybe somebody’ll figure out exactly what place that ukiyo-e print with the naive (/ ironic) caption is really of.
Which ukiyo-e print do you mean?
In addition to being polyglot computer entrepreneurs, you two are both inspired researchers, so goodness knows what you could achieve together.
I think MMcM’s talking about something here that he mentioned at the bottom of the comments here (after the bär aus Pisam).
Yes, that’s right. I apologize for straining the very weak chain of connections.
It has nothing in common other than my musing about random online book illustrations that seem to me to call for modern commentary.
I am uncertain of my reading of the handwriting in the print series title past the obvious Tokyo (東京). But Floating World scenes would have been of brothels, not hotels. So, I am guessing that it’s a guidebook to famous courtesans or something along those lines. Now I could be all wrong, in which case Mrs. Carrothers can be spared the embarrassment.