The origin of the dragon side plate?

[tg]

". I have the book in my bookshelf but didnt care to look it up since most guns portayed in this book is to fancy"

I think that the guns in Lenks book come from several parts of Rurope even Scandinavia, and most often even the high end fancy guns kept in line with the arhcitecture, furniture,style, lock type of the period so they are a valid window to see what was happening in gun building at a given time, much like trade guns were often just less adorned lower quality fowlers of the period they represent.

 

[Arrow139]

Nathan Bender does an indepth and scholarly paper about this very subject in vollume 5 of "The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal" The paper is "St. George and the Dragon Sideplate: An Art History for North American Trade Guns". It adresses dragon sideplates from early 17th century Dutch guns through the 19th century.

For years and years we called them Serpents. He and I argued about this and he finally convinced me that they are dragons. I also said "dragons spit fire", He said "only cartoon dragons spit fire". Dragons were considered real animals in the middle ages. St. George slayed one after all. You need to read the article for more information, too much to post here.

The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journals are available from the Sublette County Historical Society, Pinesdale, WY. museumofthemountainman.com

Thanks Matt,
This information is also available in my book The Art of the English Trade Gun in North America, by Nathan E. Bender, published by McFarland & Co. Available at Log Cabin Shop, and online.

 

[tenngun]

If you look close you will notice fins.
It’s not a dragon, it’s a sea serpent. Yup the motif was popular on sea service guns. And before trade guns tge guns traded were the spare arms carried on a trading ship

 

[Rifleman1776]

Why were gargoyles placed on buildings?

They were/are intended to scare away evil spirits. Gargoyles are good guys.

 

[Arrow139]

If you look close you will notice fins.
It’s not a dragon, it’s a sea serpent. Yup the motif was popular on sea service guns. And before trade guns tge guns traded were the spare arms carried on a trading shipView attachment 133417View attachment 133417

With all due respect, this falls well within the images of European dragons in the 1600s and 1700s. See my book for an extended discussion.

 

[plmeek]

This information is also available in my book The Art of the English Trade Gun in North America, by Nathan E. Bender, published by McFarland & Co.

Nathan,

I have a copy of your book and found it to be very informative and enjoyed it immensely. I highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the decorations on English trade guns as it covers a lot more than just the dragon sideplate. It ties in mythology, religion, heraldic symbolism, and art history to explain some of the meaning behind many of the more common decorations found on trade guns and even earlier (16th and 17th century) European high end guns.

One of the more insightful things I gleaned from your book was the following:

...In the twentieth century, however, a huge shift in popular perceptions of dragons occurred, as dinosaurs and lizards came to be used as conceptual models instead of snakes, resulting in a loss of the looped serpentine tail and much associated symbolism. The legged dinosaur-dragons of modern fantasy art are quite different from the serpent-dragons of seventeenth century art.

The "serpent" sideplate on the Northwest trade gun and similar decorations on other guns did represent the common image of dragons at the time. They were conceptually based on serpents, but the people that made them considered them to be dragons.