What's wrong with this picture?

[thelionspaw]

Look at the trunion. Is this possible?

[Cat Whisperer]

I'm  impressed!

Blanks maybe?

[cannonmn]

What do you see, no capsquare over the trunnion?  The gun is on a display stand made to look kinda like an old carriage, but without all the detail.  Notice there are no axles or wheels either, which would be very detrimental to any attempt to traverse or fire the gun.  The tourists don't usually know or care.

Where is that, Tower of London perhaps?  What I can see of the coat of arms looks like those I see on early 18th C. Spanish bronze guns.

[Cannoneer]

O.K. RC, what are you talking about, the apparition that looks like a hand on the bracket? I'm guessing this is an oil painting it doesn't appear to be a photo.

[cannonmn]

That gun was dropped pretty hard on the upper left part of the breech, look at cascabel and basering, hope nobody was under it at the time.  Maybe it fell through the floor of the grand storehouse that burned in 1841 at the Tower, destroying or damaging a lot of historic ordnance.

[GGaskill]

What's the question about the trunnion?  I think you are seeing only the upper half of it.

[and7barton]

I think maybe the trunnion isn't protruding far enough across the side cheek, possibly because it isn't long enough. This would be because the mounting isn't original to the barrel and the space between the cheeks is too wide. This might look, from this angle, a bit like the trunnion is floating slightly above where it should. The cascabel is distorted, but I put this down to perhaps getting a bit melted in the big fire. There are plenty of guns at the Tower that have melted and bent like a banana.
Or were you referring to the fact that the trunnion isn't on the centreline of the gun ? - Apart from Carronades, it wasn't uncommon for the trunnions to be offset lower in many types of gun; in fact, flicking through my Royal Armoury catalogue - It seems that the majority of cannon depicted have the trunnions offset below the centreline.
I can't see anything else particularly wrong with the picture, except for the unidentified object stuffed half under the breech.

[KABAR2]

Looks like the display bed might be for
an old style center trunnion mortar
photographer unfortunately had to rely
on existing light the photo's too dark,
has someone stuffed a sock monkey under
the breech end of the cannon?
not enough info about the gun itself 
what exactly are you seeing as wrong?

[thelionspaw]

I don't see a capsquare and the center line is off. That's quite a display stand. It looks as old as the cannon and is in a fortification in Spain. One would be made to believe it was all original. That's why I questioned it. The disfigured cascabel shows a real good wallop.  I never put 2 & 2 together but maybe Spain bought it at the Tower fire sale? The "sock monkey" is probably the guys foot who is still underneath. Nice piece of wood though.

rc

[cannonmn]

I'm sure the stand isn't old at all, had to have been made in 20th C. at earliest.  I do a lot of "fake vs. antique" work and this stand looks quite new to me. 

The clues are the perfectly straight and sharp edges on both  the steel straps (I think not wrought iron as old ones are) and the edges of the ends of the wood beams.  If it were even pre-1900, there would some wear and tear around the base from rot, rodents, insects, moving it around, dust, etc.  None shows.  The ends of the wood beams would be more age-cracked, chipped, etc.  The ends of the wood surfaces have been stained I think but the wood in general has no age patina.  There's no corrosion evident on the steel straps.  Since there are metal straps reinforcing the sides, there should be a metal trunnion rest strap as well, and the structure in that area appears to be simply wood.  All the wood is too fresh-looking.  I rest my case.

[Cannoneer]

Look at the trunion. Is this possible?

The rationale behind why I say this is an oil painting is twofold: The impossible effects of light as depicted on the surface of solid objects in the picture and the distorted or incorrect use of foreshortning.
I too have a passion for fine art, I may not be a modern day Rembrant like you are RC, but I am an avid amateur.
How could a light source cause that brilliant white neon bar on the chase of the barrel and then end so abruptly at the ring of the second reinforce?
There is a direct light source coming from above the rear area of the barrel, this is traceable from the shadow cast on the ground by the cascabel. Why does the distinct shadow of the pommelion of the cascabel cast on the ground seem to also show the shadow of the neck of the cascabel leading forward and narrowing to an eventual perspective point? How could this possibly be in the real world, where is the large black area that would be cast by the massive breech area of the barrel? I can tell there is a strong light source coming from the right of the picture by the harsh pool of reflected light on the stone floor, so how come the outside surface of the right cheek isn't brightly highlighted, and how could three-quarters of the rear area of the barrel be in darkness when that apparition (for lack of a better descriptive term) that is resting on the top edge of the bracket is so brilliantly lit?
Errors in foreshortning: As and7barton has already noted, the right trunnion seems to be floating; if you trace the foreshortened circle of the right trunnion face you can see that the bottom edge of the trunnion wouldn't actually be seated in the pocket of the trunnion cut out. Following the bottom outline of the barrel from the muzzle to the breech leads me to believe the barrel is mounted crookedly in the carriage; why is there such a wide gap between the barrel and the inside top edge of the right cheek?
There's also the practical matter of that thin board resting on the last step of the carriage supporting the entire weight of the breech, but then again maybe it isn't, maybe that white hand is attached to the ghostly figure of Francisco Goya and he's under the gun supporting it with his ectoplasmic backside.
I now see that two posts have been made while I've been wasting my time on this; damn you Richard!

Edited 10:51 AM

[thelionspaw]

Lots of things to think about here guys. An obvious one that seems to have escaped comment regarding the bright part of the barrel is: The curator of the piece, only got the Spanish translation of the forum, AFTER he started to polish it for the church.

Now IF we only knew a Spanish scholar. Where can one be? This accompanied the image.:

Impresionante canon que se encuentra justo en la Puerta de Tierra de la ciudad amurallada de San Francisco de Campeche.

Jugando un poco con el contraste.

Esta canon ha dado grandes sustos a muchos despistados. Cuanto alguien esta asomando la cabeza por la boca del canon y gol peos con la mano el oradicio por donde se colocaba la polvora, produce un sonido como de explosion, que deja espantado al pobre que andaba de miron por la boca del artefacto jejeje. Alguna vez lo hiciste? Yo he soprendido a varios con la "explosion" jejeje. Saludos.

Interestante mujaajajaja si he metido la cabeza pero no he jugado bromas a si, jejeje lo intentare a la proxima gracias por el tip XD

[cannonmn]

Here's a web mechanical translation courtesy of Babelfish:

Impressive canon that is right in the Land Door of the walled city of San Francisco de Campeche. Playing a little with the resistance. This canon has given great scares many confused ones. Whichever somebody this showing the head by the mouth of the peos canon and goal with the hand the oradicio by where the powder was placed, produces a sound like of explosion, that leaves frightened the poor man who walked of Peepnik by the mouth of the device jejeje. You did sometimes it? I have soprendido to several with " explosion" jejeje. Greetings. Interestante mujaajajaja if I have put the head but I have played jokes if, it will try jejeje it to next thanks for tip XD

The reason it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense I think is that it has a lot of slang and/or informal type of sentence structure.  I know very little of Spanish but as you can see some of the words don't  translate and some of the sentences just don't make much sense.

[Cannoneer]

 O.K. now, utilizing my almost perfect grasp of Castilian I have completed translating to the English. I of course will not bore you with all the details, the general gist of what is said is basically that El Greco did indeed paint this picture. In fact it is stated that he painted this impressive cannon befor an astigmatism had begun to cause his later works to exhibit that strange elongated form that he gave to his latter figures. You may well ask why you can't see the name El Greco anywhere; this is because he has been referred to by the nickname he was known by in Toledo: Mujaajajaja, which has a rather off-color meaning that I will not repeat here.
Now Richard, I want you to know that anytime you might need me to delve down into the almost bottomless pit of my knowledge of languages and the world of fine art history that I will most definitely always be glad to help out.

[thelionspaw]

Thanks cannonmn. I appears that babelfish uses Manuel of Falty Towers to do their translating for them and Manuel was played by none other than our own Boom J..

BTW: A Babel Fish was stuck in ones ear to translate any language. It was featured in, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". An amusing BBC production. I have a copy.

Don't panic!

[Cat Whisperer]

Thanks cannonmn. I appears that babelfish uses Manuel of Falty Towers to do their translating for them and Manuel was played by none other than our own Boom J..

BTW: A Babel Fish was stuck in ones ear to translate any language. It was featured in, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". An amusing BBC production. I have a copy.

Don't panic!

I have all 5 books of the trilogy.  42.

[Double D]

Babel fish only does literal translation.  It can not translate idioms

[thelionspaw]

Yo Cat!
I have the BBC DVD with the space artillery. The American movie version was garbage.

Don't Panic! It's 42

[accuratemike]

Here's a web mechanical translation courtesy of Babelfish:

Impressive canon that is right in the Land Door of the walled city of San Francisco de Campeche. Playing a little with the resistance. This canon has given great scares many confused ones. Whichever somebody this showing the head by the mouth of the peos canon and goal with the hand the oradicio by where the powder was placed, produces a sound like of explosion, that leaves frightened the poor man who walked of Peepnik by the mouth of the device jejeje. You did sometimes it? I have soprendido to several with " explosion" jejeje. Greetings. Interestante mujaajajaja if I have put the head but I have played jokes if, it will try jejeje it to next thanks for tip XD

I think this same paragraph was in a Chinese manual for something I bought at HF. Thanks, now I know how to adjust my Gurnsey warble plate. MIKE

[Cannoneer]

Thanks cannonmn. I appears that babelfish uses Manuel of Falty Towers to do their translating for them and Manuel was played by none other than our own Boom J..

 This cuts to the quick, but alright then, I've tossed my Spanish-English dictionary into the can and I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm never going to replace Lord Kenneth Clark so I'll just bow my head and shuffle off in search of John Cleese.

[cannonmn]

I wonder if "jejeje" translates to "hehehe."  If I've cracked the code on that one, my understanding of the excerpt has increased from 1% to about 2%.

[cannonmn]

And similarly, note the word "mujaajajaja."  Here we have the evil or deep laugh, represented in English slang by "Muhaahahaha!" and (several variants thereof.)  That only took me three days to figger out, boy am I sharp, or what?

[cannonmn]

In any case, so far the caption doesn't look like a scholarly piece written by someone with a PhD in cannonology.

[Cannoneer]

 All (or at least most) goofing around aside I did actually try to translate RC's Spanish tract yesterday using a www program. If you ad-lib a little bit you can make a little sense out of at least part of it. Yeah, I also think the 'hehehe' signifies laughter and the 'mujaajajaja' signifies macabre laughter. Peos is an abbreviated slang for European, which doesn't make much sense seeing that Spaniards are European, so I looked up Campeche in an atlas and found that it's in Mexico. The coupling of the words European and cannon now makes a little more sense.

 Impressive cannon that is found just inside the entrance of the walled city of Saint Francis of Campeche. Playing a bit with the difference.This cannon has given great frights to many confused individuals.

For the rest I got basically the same jumble you did; Peepnik might mean a nosey person, just like we add the suffix nik to descriptive words, nogoodnik, beatnik etc.. A nosey person peering into the mouth of the cannon.
Is the person who wrote this talking about a practical joke to play on someone? A nosey one who can't resist looking down into the muzzle of the gun having his pants scared off by the detonation of an explosive charge, ha, ha, ha. I don't know.

[thelionspaw]

Cannonmn. You are correct on all points and you were first. Happy Halloween Manuel! Muujaajaja!!!!!!

rc

[Cannoneer]

Cannonmn. You are correct on all points and you were first. Happy Halloween Manuel! Muujaajaja!!!!!!

rc

Keep it up, you're going to need a witness protection program. I'm guessing you've conned someone into doing all your snow shoveling for you by giving them a pathetic pained look and pointing to your back.

Added 4:15    BTW, how and why does a guy that kicked his boob box out into the street with such self- proclaimed disdain have such a font of knowledge about TV lore? I think it must be that you used to be addicted to this pedestrian form of entertainment. Books indeed!