A PAIR OF 16-BORE TURKISH SILVER-MOUNTED FLINTLOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS

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A PAIR OF 16-BORE TURKISH SILVER-MOUNTED FLINTLOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS

LATE 18TH CENTURY

With russet three-stage barrels encrusted with gold scrollwork, flowers and birds and each with two panels of gold inscriptions on the forward section involving the owner's name (indecipherable except for his designation al-Hajj), shaped tangs each encrusted with a gold flower and incorporating the back-sight, rounded locks and cocks each with encrusted gold scrollwork, gold-encrusted pans and steels, figured walnut full stocks inlaid with silver wire scrolls and dots and with silver mounts in earlier European manner, including pierced scroll side-plates, pierced escutcheons, and spurred pommels each with grotesque mask cap, engraved silver muzzle bands, turned silver ramrod-pipes, and original ivory-tipped ramrods
18½in. (47cm.) (2)

Lot Essay

Although the owner's name is indecipherable, the inscriptions on the barrels appear to refer to an offical at court, either metropolitan or provincial. His designation al-Hajj signifies his having made the pilgrimage to Mecca

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