434 - A rare fire-gilt miniature cannon by Michael Mann, active in Augsburg and Nuremberg, 1st quarter of the 17th century

A rare fire-gilt miniature cannon by Michael Mann, active in Augsburg and Nuremberg, 1st quarter of the 17th century Conical barrel with bold ribbing and a reinforced muzzle. Volute-shaped handles; the locking clasp for the firing hole is missing. An indistinct stamped mark in front of the firing hole. All-metal carriage made of fire-gilded sheet brass with finely engraved scrollwork. The delicate iron fittings show slight traces of bluing. Small display case with a spring-locked lid. Finely crafted spoked wheels with iron cotter pins. Barrel length 8 cm, total length 10.6 cm. While the miniature boxes crafted by Michael Mann are more commonly found in the high-end art market, the miniature firearms he produced are significantly rarer and therefore little known. In addition to fully functional miniature wheel-lock firearms, his workshop also produced a small group of miniature cannons, of which only about 20 examples are known to exist worldwide, many of them in museum collections. For example, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg holds a small group of three such pieces. See also: Weis, Robert, “The Miniature Weapons of Michael Mann,” in: The Works of Conradt and Michel Mann and Their Workshop, Proceedings of the Conference of June 16 and 17, 2023, Schell Collection Graz, p. 70 ff. The cannon offered here is illustrated in: Laue, Georg, *Die Kunstkammer – Wunder kann man sammeln*, Munich 2016, no. 32. Condition: II