BY WILLIAM HUTCHINSON, LONDON, CIRCA 1736

Details

A Rare 12-Bore Flintlock Duck Gun
By William Hutchinson, London, circa 1736
With heavy swamped sighted barrel (some minor surface pitting) signed in an engraved loop on the top flat of the breech and with a band of engraved ornament at the rear, engraved tang, signed lightly engraved rounded lock (steel-spring probably associated), moulded figured walnut full stock (minor bruising, fore-end cracked) carved in relief with a shell behind the barrel tang and rear ramrod-pipe, brass mounts finely engraved with flower-heads and foliage including butt-plate with long swelling tang, pierced side-plate, cast and chased escutcheon with shell below and grotesque mask above, and engraved with owner's initial 'G', and brass-capped ramrod with worm, proof marks and barrel-forger's mark defaced
49½in. (125.7cm.) barrel

Provenance

William Cunningham, 13th Earl of Glencairn (d. 1775), soldier, who entered the army in 1729, became a major in the 52nd Foot in 1741, a lieutenant-colonel in the 9th Foot in 1747, and a major-general in 1770. He was a benefactor and friend of the poet Robert Burns

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, p. 340, plates 141 a, b

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

William Hutchinson was allowed to have his barrels proved by the Gunmakers' Company as a 'Foreigner' between 1721 and 1731. He appears to have been appointed Gunsmith-in-Ordinary to King George II in 1726 and to have died in 1740. In 1736 he appeared before the Court of the Gunmakers' Company and admitted to a charge of counterfeiting proof marks. His partnership with Bidet dates to circa 1715-20 - see the silver-mounted blunderbuss hallmarked for 1716 sold from the W. Keith Neal Collection in these Rooms, 9 November 2000, lot 39

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