A 50-BORE FRENCH WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOL
A 50-BORE FRENCH WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOL

CIRCA 1630 AND LATER

Details
A 50-BORE FRENCH WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOL
Circa 1630 and later
With tapering octagonal barrel with a chiselled parcel-gilt panel at the muzzle and breech, each involving strapwork, flowers, and foliage around masks and figures centred on respectively Mercury and Mars, the intermediate surface gold-damascened on a hatched ground with an interlaced design of scrolls and pellets, and on the two lateral planes with a chequerwork pattern enclosing dots, engraved and gilt tang extended to reach the pommel, engraved parcel-gilt lock, the tail chiselled as a dog's head, chiselled wheel-bracket in the form of an amorino, chiselled pan and pan-cover, the latter with slender baluster release button, engraved and chiselled cock decorated with masks in relief, full stock veneered in ivory (minor losses and replacements) inlaid with shaped iron panels (one missing, some replaced) variously chiselled and gilt, or gold-damascened en suite with the barrel, lemon-shaped pommel of octagonal section, chiselled and gilt anthemion trigger-guard, engraved and gilt trigger-plate and side-plate, chiselled gilt ramrod-pipes, and gilt iron ramrod with chiselled tip
31 in. (81.3 cm.)
Provenance
Rothschild inv. no. LR349.

Lot Essay

Probably assembled and decorated to the order of the Austro-French dealer-collector Frdric Spitzer (1815-90), who supplied a large number of pieces to Sir Richard Wallace (now in the Wallace Collection, Manchester Square), and to other wealthy Parisian collectors of his time, and whose name is associated in particular with the got Rothschild.

Spitzer was born in Vienna and lived in various parts of Europe (including England) before establishing himself in Paris in 1852. By 1878 he was in a position to form a private museum for his works of art, for which he built a special house, No. 33 in the rue Villejust. The contents of his collections were published after his death in a lavish catalogue in six large folios in 1890-92, and his objects of art were sold in 1893 in a series of sales extending over three months, followed by the arms and armour in 1895. An appreciation of Spitzer is to be found in Edmond Bonnaff's essay 'Un djeuner d'amateurs' included in his book Les Propos de Valentin, Paris, 1886, and in the introduction to the Spitzer sale catalogue of 1893.
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