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Lot Essay
A remarkable and poignant survival, this shotgun was acquired by Founding Father John Jay (1745-1829) (fig. 1) during his final months serving as one of the Peace Commissioners who drafted the Treaty of Paris, the agreement which formally concluded the Revolutionary War. After the American victory at Yorktown in October 1781, Benjamin Franklin called Jay to Paris in June 1782 to enlist his help with the peace negotiations. Along with John Adams, Franklin and Jay were the primary delegates representing the United States who worked with their British, French and Spanish counterparts to devise the treaty that would officially recognize American independence. Signed in 1783, the treaty was ratified by the US and Britain in January and April 1784 respectively and on May 12, the final documents were exchanged in Paris. Just days later, Jay departed France and headed home. His triumphant return is documented by the exquisite gold Freedom Box presented him by the City of New York, which is inscribed with the date 1784 (see Samuel Johnson, Freedom Box Presented by the Corporation of the City of New York to John Jay, engraved by Peter Rushton Maverick, 1784, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. L.2016.66.1a, b).
Jay almost certainly acquired this shotgun in his final months in Paris, between late January, when he arrived back from a brief trip to England, and mid May of 1784, when he and his family set sail for America. During this time, the Jay household was based in Chaillot, a country village on the outskirts of Paris, where a gun of this type might well have come in handy for hunting wildfowl. The shotgun's maker, Nicholas Bouillet (1744-1800), was a prominent Parisian gunmaker at this time who was known for his fine workmanship and inventive constructions, including three-barreled shotguns. Jay may well have been aware of Bouillet's wares through his acquaintances. Among these Count D’Artois (1757-1836), the younger brother of Louis XVI and later crowned Charles X, who owned a generally similar but more luxuriously decorated shotgun made by Bouillet just a few years earlier.[i] Perhaps the Count had shown Jay his gun and Jay subsequently sought a similar model for himself. Maybe he purchased it as a reward for his hard work and a memento of his time abroad, or maybe it was gifted to him for his efforts from a grateful peer. Regardless of the means, Jay’s acquisition of the firearm during the early months in 1784 speaks to a celebratory period in Jay’s life and his invaluable contributions to the concluding chapters of the War of Independence. Indeed, it would appear that the gun was especially valued by Jay, as he went to the trouble of having his name and the date professionally engraved in elegant script on the buttplate.
This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.
-John Jay, Federalist No. 4, 1787.
Jay was born in New York City to Peter and Mary (Van Cortlandt) Jay in 1745. He studied law after his graduation from King’s College (now Columbia University) in 1764. In 1776, he became Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court and drew up the state’s constitution. Two years later, he was elected president of the Second Continental Congress and the following year he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain, where he served until he traveled to Paris to fulfill his role as peace commissioner. Thereafter, he served as the country’s Secretary of State and along with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, was co-author of The Federalist Papers, the highly influential treatises that successfully advocated for a strong, united country (fig. 3). His illustrious political career culminated in his appointment by George Washington in 1789 as the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (fig. 4). From 1795 to 1801, he served as Governor of New York before retiring to his estate Bedford House (fig. 5), near Katonah, New York.
THE PRODUCTION AND USE OF THE SHOTGUN
The shotgun is further distinguished by bearing the engraved names of three of its makers, three allied craftsmen whose specialized skills produced the component parts. Admitted as a master gunmaker in Paris in 1776, Nicolas Bouillet was active in the city until 1800. He hailed from a family of gunsmiths from Saint Etienne, a center of French firearms production since the sixteenth century, and along with his brother, Claude, was most likely trained by his father, Jean Bouillet. While working in Paris, Bouillet procured parts such as the barrel and steel mounts from artisans in Saint Etienne. Here, the barrel is signed “A. Giraud” and “Cart[e]ron,” very likely a reference to Antoine Giraud who is recorded as a barrelsmith in the 1760s and 1770s. The Carteron family was another local gunsmithing dynasty and the presence of the name here likely refers to a marriage between the two families. As indicated by the identification on the interior of the butt cap, the mounts were supplied by Jean Francois Brunon (1737-after 1784), also of Saint Etienne. Noted as a “forgeur” or blacksmith at the time of his marriage in 1760, he specialized on making furniture for civilian guns and probably produced the buttplate, trigger guard, and ramrod tubes on the shotgun offered here.
Used for sport shooting, the model of the shotgun offered here was popular along the nearby Hudson-Mohawk waterways where Jay likely hunted during his retirement. The gun’s conversion from its original flintlock to a percussion, a more advanced firing mechanism, ca. 1840-50 indicates that it was subsequently used and enjoyed, perhaps by Jay’s son William (1789-1858) who inherited Bedford House, well into the nineteenth century.
[i] Bearing silver hallmarks for the 1782-1783 period, the hunting gun of the Count D’Artois in the collection of the Louvre, Paris (MR 435; MS 149). For an example of the Jays’ friendship with the Count and Countess, see “To John Jay from Sarah Livingston Jay, 7 December 1783,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jay/01-03-02-0214. [Original source: The Selected Papers of John Jay, vol. 3, 1782–1784, ed. Elizabeth M. Nuxoll (Charlottesville, Virginia, 2013), pp. 527–528.
Jay almost certainly acquired this shotgun in his final months in Paris, between late January, when he arrived back from a brief trip to England, and mid May of 1784, when he and his family set sail for America. During this time, the Jay household was based in Chaillot, a country village on the outskirts of Paris, where a gun of this type might well have come in handy for hunting wildfowl. The shotgun's maker, Nicholas Bouillet (1744-1800), was a prominent Parisian gunmaker at this time who was known for his fine workmanship and inventive constructions, including three-barreled shotguns. Jay may well have been aware of Bouillet's wares through his acquaintances. Among these Count D’Artois (1757-1836), the younger brother of Louis XVI and later crowned Charles X, who owned a generally similar but more luxuriously decorated shotgun made by Bouillet just a few years earlier.[i] Perhaps the Count had shown Jay his gun and Jay subsequently sought a similar model for himself. Maybe he purchased it as a reward for his hard work and a memento of his time abroad, or maybe it was gifted to him for his efforts from a grateful peer. Regardless of the means, Jay’s acquisition of the firearm during the early months in 1784 speaks to a celebratory period in Jay’s life and his invaluable contributions to the concluding chapters of the War of Independence. Indeed, it would appear that the gun was especially valued by Jay, as he went to the trouble of having his name and the date professionally engraved in elegant script on the buttplate.
This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.
-John Jay, Federalist No. 4, 1787.
Jay was born in New York City to Peter and Mary (Van Cortlandt) Jay in 1745. He studied law after his graduation from King’s College (now Columbia University) in 1764. In 1776, he became Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court and drew up the state’s constitution. Two years later, he was elected president of the Second Continental Congress and the following year he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain, where he served until he traveled to Paris to fulfill his role as peace commissioner. Thereafter, he served as the country’s Secretary of State and along with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, was co-author of The Federalist Papers, the highly influential treatises that successfully advocated for a strong, united country (fig. 3). His illustrious political career culminated in his appointment by George Washington in 1789 as the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (fig. 4). From 1795 to 1801, he served as Governor of New York before retiring to his estate Bedford House (fig. 5), near Katonah, New York.
THE PRODUCTION AND USE OF THE SHOTGUN
The shotgun is further distinguished by bearing the engraved names of three of its makers, three allied craftsmen whose specialized skills produced the component parts. Admitted as a master gunmaker in Paris in 1776, Nicolas Bouillet was active in the city until 1800. He hailed from a family of gunsmiths from Saint Etienne, a center of French firearms production since the sixteenth century, and along with his brother, Claude, was most likely trained by his father, Jean Bouillet. While working in Paris, Bouillet procured parts such as the barrel and steel mounts from artisans in Saint Etienne. Here, the barrel is signed “A. Giraud” and “Cart[e]ron,” very likely a reference to Antoine Giraud who is recorded as a barrelsmith in the 1760s and 1770s. The Carteron family was another local gunsmithing dynasty and the presence of the name here likely refers to a marriage between the two families. As indicated by the identification on the interior of the butt cap, the mounts were supplied by Jean Francois Brunon (1737-after 1784), also of Saint Etienne. Noted as a “forgeur” or blacksmith at the time of his marriage in 1760, he specialized on making furniture for civilian guns and probably produced the buttplate, trigger guard, and ramrod tubes on the shotgun offered here.
Used for sport shooting, the model of the shotgun offered here was popular along the nearby Hudson-Mohawk waterways where Jay likely hunted during his retirement. The gun’s conversion from its original flintlock to a percussion, a more advanced firing mechanism, ca. 1840-50 indicates that it was subsequently used and enjoyed, perhaps by Jay’s son William (1789-1858) who inherited Bedford House, well into the nineteenth century.
[i] Bearing silver hallmarks for the 1782-1783 period, the hunting gun of the Count D’Artois in the collection of the Louvre, Paris (MR 435; MS 149). For an example of the Jays’ friendship with the Count and Countess, see “To John Jay from Sarah Livingston Jay, 7 December 1783,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jay/01-03-02-0214. [Original source: The Selected Papers of John Jay, vol. 3, 1782–1784, ed. Elizabeth M. Nuxoll (Charlottesville, Virginia, 2013), pp. 527–528.