Lot 253
253
A FINE PAIR OF GERMAN FLINTLOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS in the Parisian taste, with four-stage barrels octagonal then fluted at the breech, the tangs each engraved with inventory number '10', signed rounded locks (one steel-spring broken) engraved with double lines around the border, foliage at the centre, a monster on each cock, and with chiselled details on the cocks and steels, boxwood full stocks carved with scrolls in relief on the fore-stocks and on each side of the barrel tang, lightly engraved iron mounts including spurred pommels each with finely pierced and engraved oval cap, silver side-plates and escutcheons, the latter (replacing the originals) pricked with the initials E.v.G. framed by palm branches with a crown above, turned iron ramrod-pipes, and original iron-capped ramrods (fore-stocks cracked and chipped, one side-plate damaged, one pommel button defective), by Johannes Moritz, Kassel, Hessen, circa 1680

Details
A FINE PAIR OF GERMAN FLINTLOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS in the Parisian taste, with four-stage barrels octagonal then fluted at the breech, the tangs each engraved with inventory number '10', signed rounded locks (one steel-spring broken) engraved with double lines around the border, foliage at the centre, a monster on each cock, and with chiselled details on the cocks and steels, boxwood full stocks carved with scrolls in relief on the fore-stocks and on each side of the barrel tang, lightly engraved iron mounts including spurred pommels each with finely pierced and engraved oval cap, silver side-plates and escutcheons, the latter (replacing the originals) pricked with the initials E.v.G. framed by palm branches with a crown above, turned iron ramrod-pipes, and original iron-capped ramrods (fore-stocks cracked and chipped, one side-plate damaged, one pommel button defective), by Johannes Moritz, Kassel, Hessen, circa 1680
21½in. [E.505] (2)

Lot Essay

Moritz was appointed court gunmaker to the Landgraf of Hessen-Cassel in 1678. He also supplied firearms to the Dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Several were illustrated in the catalogue of the Exhibition of Arms...lent by the Duke of Brunswick, Tower of London, 1952, pls.X and XI

After Armand Bongarde of Dusseldorf, Moritz was the most successful of the 17th Century German makers working in the French style. The present pistols are very close stylistically to the work of Thuraine

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