Lot Essay
The blued finish and almost all the decoration on the iron parts dates from the third quarter of the nineteenth Century, and was probably carried out to the order of Frdric Spitzer.
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EARLY 17TH CENTURY
Details
A 60-Bore French Wheel-Lock Holster Pistol
Early 17th Century
With slender blued barrel with pronounced step at the rear of the breech and chiselled in relief throughout its length on a punched and gilt ground with standing figures each within a niche, long blued tang extending to the pommel and cut with a running design of foliage involving masks, all on a gilt ground, blued chiselled and gilt lock with numerous mask finials and a monster-head on the jaws of the cock (one side-nail missing), fruitwood full stock (fore-end tip damaged) terminating in lemon-shaped pommel of hexagonal section with mother-of-pearl button, the surface inlaid throughout with brass lines enclosing mother-of-pearl panels (two replaced) engraved with birds, flowers and foliage, and on the pommel with profile busts, all on a ground of fine brass wire tendrils carrying brass leaves and pewter pellets, the blued side-plate, trigger-guard and trigger-plate chiselled and gilt en suite with the barrel tang, engraved horn fore-end cap and ramrod-pipes, and horn-tipped ramrod
31 in. (80 cm.)
Early 17th Century
With slender blued barrel with pronounced step at the rear of the breech and chiselled in relief throughout its length on a punched and gilt ground with standing figures each within a niche, long blued tang extending to the pommel and cut with a running design of foliage involving masks, all on a gilt ground, blued chiselled and gilt lock with numerous mask finials and a monster-head on the jaws of the cock (one side-nail missing), fruitwood full stock (fore-end tip damaged) terminating in lemon-shaped pommel of hexagonal section with mother-of-pearl button, the surface inlaid throughout with brass lines enclosing mother-of-pearl panels (two replaced) engraved with birds, flowers and foliage, and on the pommel with profile busts, all on a ground of fine brass wire tendrils carrying brass leaves and pewter pellets, the blued side-plate, trigger-guard and trigger-plate chiselled and gilt en suite with the barrel tang, engraved horn fore-end cap and ramrod-pipes, and horn-tipped ramrod
31 in. (80 cm.)
Provenance
Rothschild inv. no. LR675.