[Archers] St. Sebastian by Gerrit van Honthorst

[Bary Sears]

I wonder how many archers there were? From the angles of the arrows I'd have
to say at least two. , but I can't figure out the one in the leg.  Looks
like me on a windy day.

 

Barre

 

 

From: Archers [mailto:archers-bounces at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org] On Behalf
Of Garth Groff
Sent: Thursday, June 4, 2015 6:52 PM
To: archers at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
Subject: [Archers] St. Sebastian by Gerrit van Honthorst

 

Noble Friends of the Bow,

While cataloging a French art book today I ran across this painting of Saint
Sebastian, being shot full of arrows:
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/gerrit-van-honthorst-saint-sebas
tian . The painting is by Gerrit van Honthorst and dates to 1623. While
nobody can be completely sure of how accurate the presentation of the arrows
is, there is a good chance that these have at least some authentic period
features. I have seen at least one portrait of a nobleman with his arrows
that dates to about 1550 with similar arrows, so I feel pretty comfortable
they can be taken as fairly accurate representations for late period SCA
use. 

Since 1623 was pretty much past the end of military archery, we can be
reasonably certain these are gentlemen's sporting arrows. This is further
suggested by the cresting, as a lower class archer would probably make their
own arrows without cresting. These were likely professionally made. All four
arrows have more or less the same crest, from the point end there are two
black bands, then some sort of figure or design which cannot be clearly seen
on any of the four, two more black bands, then three more black bands just
before the fletch. One has two black bands between the fletch and the nock.
If the artist painted from life, than all the arrows probably were made by,
or belonged to, the same person. 

Three of the arrows seem to have the same color fletches, a white cock
feather and two red hen feathers. The arrow which is lodged in the saint's
breast (it is also the arrow with the extra cresting below the nock) shows
two white feathers. Since it is somewhat different, this arrow might have
been from a different batch, or might have had some special use by its
owner. There are three different fletch shapes here. The arrow through the
saint's arm has swallow tails, and the fletch is slightly rounded. The arrow
through his thigh has straight-cut shield-back fletches. The remaining two
arrows are both slope-backed shield-cut. In short, though the arrows appear
to be of a family, they are all slightly different. None of the fletches
appear to be bound on with thread.

The shafts appear to be unpainted. They were likely treated with boiled
linseed oil, or a beeswax and tallow mix. All are self-nocked.

What seems odd is that the two arrows which have gone through the saint's
limbs do not appear to have points. Particular the arrow through the thigh,
seems to be just sharpened wood. Perhaps there are points here, but they are
obscured by blood. The arm shot is very hard to see due to the shadow
effects, but appears to be the same.

I loved seeing what I could squeeze out of this picture. Anyone else have
different opinions?

Yours Aye,


Lord Mungo Napier, The Archer of Mallard Lodge





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