A PAIR OF 18-BORE FLINTLOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS

Details

A PAIR OF 18-BORE FLINTLOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS

BY LEWIS BARBAR, LONDON, CIRCA 1725

With two-stage slightly belled barrels each signed and engraved with foliage at the breech, engraved tangs, signed border engraved rounded locks (cocks replaced apart from one top jaw and screw), moulded figured walnut full stocks (one butt repaired) each carved with an acanthus leaf behind the barrel tang and rear ramrod-pipe, iron mounts comprising unusual solid side-plates chiselled with a design of interlaced strapwork terminating in foliage, against a stippled ground, foliate escutcheons retaining faint traces of owner's crest, trigger-guards with acanthus leaf finial, and baluster ramrod-pipes, and original horn-tipped ramrods, London proof marks
15¾in. (2)

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, p. 302, plates 120a, b

Lot Essay

Lewis Barbar, a protestant, was born at Essendun in Poitou, France, and came to this country in about 1688. Naturalised in 1700, he was elected to the London Gunmakers' Company in 1704, and became master in 1708. He was also appointed Gentleman Armourer to King George I, and subsequently to George III in 1727. He died in 1741

Today the largest group of firearms by Lewis Barbar is preserved in the Armoury of the Duke of Buccleuch at Boughton house. They were made to the order of John, 2nd Duke of Montagu (1709-49), who was Master General of Ordnance from 1740 to 1749. The accounts at Boughton record payments to Barbar which include '¨150 for 200 Muskets', and a letter of 7 June 1718 to the 2nd Duke of Montagu from his vicar mentions that Barbar was responsible for the display of the firearms at Boughton at that date

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