Monday, April 6, 2009

Old Polish stirrups



Hello,
today another little image in the theme of the Old Polish horse tack.
This time the stirrups - this particular set comes to us from Russia where they've been preserved ever since one of the the Polish Royal Envoys left them there, with many other gifts including horses, saddles, arms, silverware and textiles, during the frequent diplomatic exchanges of the first quarter of the 17th century, between the Polish Kings and the many Tsars of that time period.

These stirrups, along with 4 other pairs indentyfied as 17th century Polish, are housed at the Kremlin's Armory - Оружейная палата Oruzhenaya Palata.

They are made out of cast iron, then they were covered in gold (gilded) and small turquoise stones were set in the three-leaves structures, decorating them as if flower cups. They are 15cm high and they were originally attached to a Polish or oriental saddle, although they cannot by connected to any particular saddle at this time. They appeared first time in the Kremlin inventory in AD 1647.

I used the Wacom tablet and GIMP to 'paint' this image.

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