BY JAMES FREEMAN, LONDON, CIRCA 1730

Details

A fine 16-Bore Flintlock Sporting Gun
By James Freeman, London, circa 1730
With swamped three-stage barrel with silver fore-sight (replaced) signed within a raised loop at the breech and with a raised slotted moulding and an engraved band of acanthus foliage at the rear, engraved grooved tang, signed rounded lock with raised border, the pan with water-drains and raised rim, moulded figured walnut full stock (minor bruising, fore-end cracked) carved in relief with foliage at the barrel tang and behind the rear ramrod-pipe, engraved and chiselled iron mounts including pierced and chiselled foliate side-plate, baluster ramrod-pipes, and later horn-tipped ramrod, the escutcheon engraved with owner's crest, a heron (some minor surface rust spotting, one barrel-bolt missing), London proof marks
37¾in. (95.9cm.) barrel

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, pp. 419-20, plates 180 a-d

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

James Paul Freeman was admitted to the freedom of the Gunmakers' Company on 5 July 1716, and in the same year took over the premises in St. Martin's Lane previously occupied by Andrew Dolep. He was Master in 1732, and died in 1736

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