BY JOHN 2 SHAW, LONDON, CIRCA 1690

Details

A 21-Bore Flintlock Sporting Gun
By John 2 Shaw, London, circa 1690
With exceptionally fine russet barrel engraved on the raised sighting flat 'Fear God and Honour The King: Doe as you Would Be Done To: Be Frugal: All is Vanity', and with chiselled relief decoration at the muzzle and breech including putto-heads, profile portrait busts, a coronet, a gilt fasces, a human eye, and a skull and crossbones, the fore-sight in the form of an animal-head, at the rear of the breech a signed slotted ramp finely chiselled with acanthus foliage, shaped tang finely engraved with foliated scrollwork, signed and engraved lock, carved highly figured full stock, chiselled iron mounts of exceptional quality including elaborately pierced side-plate of Simonin pattern book inspiration, shaped trigger-guard with additional finger support and chiselled finials, shaped escutcheon involving two grotesque masks and engraved with the Harbord crest, four baluster ramrod-pipes, and later iron-capped ramrod (the lock, side-nails, butt-plate, and nearly all of the stock expertly replaced)
43in. (109.2cm.) barrel

Provenance

The Barons Suffield, Gunton Park, Norfolk, house sale, Irelands, 17 September 1980, lot 1550 or 1556
Presumably made for the first owner of Gunton Park, John Harbord (fourth son of Sir Charles Harbord, d. 1679), who died in 1710 at the age of eighty-four as a result of a fall from his horse on the way back from shooting

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

John 2 Shaw (d. 1720) was one of the most distinguished London gunmakers of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He was apprenticed in Bristol, but already working in London, 1665-68. Free of the Gunmakers' Company in 1673, he was appointed Gunmaker-in-Ordinary successively to Kings Charles II, William III, and George I. Many of the 17th-century guns in the Gunton Park house sale were by John Shaw
See lot 71

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