Bratislava – Old Town Hall (Schützenscheiben – Ferdinand V from 1830)

This rather bold bit of decorative violence is a Schützenscheibe, a painted shooting target, and this blog might be featuring a fair few of these. This one features Ferdinand V (1793-1875), King of Hungary, looking thoroughly regal while charging into battle atop a very well-behaved horse. The date is 1830, when he was crowned in Bratislava (or Pressburg, depending on how much imperial nostalgia you’re feeling), and this object captures the solemn majesty of that moment, shortly before someone presumably tried to shoot it in the face. I was quite engaging with these targets, although that will likely become obvious to my two loyal blog readers when they see how many more there are.

The Schützenscheibe tradition was a peculiar mix of patriotic enthusiasm and marksmanship, whereby people celebrated important figures or events by painting them onto wooden discs and then proceeding to fire projectiles at them. It’s not quite a state portrait, more of a royal rendering with optional bullet holes, but as ever, I rather liked it. Ferdinand V is doing his best “imperial grandeur” pose here and he’s wearing the Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen, because nothing says “shoot me here” like a giant jewel-encrusted hat. The whole thing is painted with surprising finesse, especially considering its fate involved standing at the end of a rifle range.

There aren’t many holes in this one, so perhaps it was either just not used or the shooters were a bit inept. Ferdinand V, not content with being the King of Hungary, also became the Emperor of Austria in 1835. He abdicated from the Austrian throne in 1848, but he remained the King of Hungary as there was no way of abdicating from that. As a leader he was well-meaning and hopeless (I simplify things there quite a lot) but he’s an interesting character.