Cleveland Museum of Art

Powder horn

Date

1600s-1700s

Medium

Jadeite, iron inlaid with brass

Culture

India, Mughal, 17th-18th century

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Like the firearms themselves, powder horns were made as courtly accessories to be worn as objects of beauty. Most Mughal nobles also served as military commanders, and accouterments of war would be worn as part of their formal attire. For this reason, artisans used precious materials such as white jade, which in this example has been carved with leaf and petal patterns, its natural black inclusions treated as ornament. Pressing down on the simple mechanism opens the hollow inner chamber from which small amounts of gunpowder were administered into the pan of a matchlock musket.

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