"Austrian Grenadier Bearskins" Topic

Okay I'm painting up some Austrian grenadiers and I just spent an hour on line trying to find a good image of the BACK of the bearskin hat. I know it is some sort of fabric bag and I've got an image (in the Funcken Book) showing a set of alternating white and colored stripes. I found one source saying that initially the colored stripes were the same as the regiment's facing color, but later they were all changed to Imperial Yellow.

The problem is that the casting on the figures I have (Sash & Saber) don't seem to match the illustration. The casting looks to have some sort of pattern around the perimeter of the bag and then two horizontal stripes at the bottom and than a single vertical pattern of what look like lacings up the center.

A few period illustrations seem to show just a plain white bag (although the image is very small). I found one great photo of an original in an Austrian museum--except it only shows the front!

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks!

Something like this:

And on a drummer:

The base colour may be the facing colour with white lace stripes – I've read various opinions on the colours.

Scott,

I checked two of my sources. The bag is in the facing color with white lace. The way it is applied is hard to describe. If you send me a PM with your email, I can send you a detailed picture.

Mark

Here an immage of a grenadiercap from the 1767 regulations which give a good idea about the pattern

Of course can't beat that excellent first hand source by Von Winterfeldt!
But your descreption seem to fit more this picture found with Google pictures "Austrian grenadiercap" (fourth entry, third figure from left – it's an Osprey plate) – a possible variation IMHO.

when did the stripes change? grts joe

Thanks gentlemen! Just knowing that the bag was white with the colored lace applied to that is a help. It still doesn't quite seem to match what I'm seeing on the casting of my figures, but I guess I'll work something out.

As for when the stripes changed, I found this posting:

link

It indicated that the regulations changed for the color to all be yellow in 1798, but that the actual change didn't take place for a long time.

Some info here:
link

For the 1813 Regulations, I have dug out some references provided to me when I was asking the same question.

link

mdavis41,

Okay, thanks! That pattern looks VERY much like what I'm seeing on my figure casting! I will go with that.

Thanks again!

An odd question buy why THAT pattern?

The image mdavis41 provided is the one I had in mind.
It shows the cloth in yellow and the lace upon it in white (not the other way round).
It all developed from cloth forage caps with a long hanging bag with fur added around – in about a century the fur become the prominent feature and the cloth bag diminished.
The upward part ("Spiegel") and the horizontal part ("Deckel") were divided, the latter the remnant of the hanging bag, ending in the yellow-black pompon.

TMP link