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Lot Essay
This impressive firearm is part of a rare group of Ottoman firearms characterised by their great size and unusually high and elaborately-inlaid back-sights. Each of the gun’s traditional components – lock, stock and barrel – is stamped with a maker’s mark, and the barrel is additionally stamped ‘tested’ (imtiḥan), a common feature of gun barrels indicating it is safe for use. Although the pattern-welded steel barrel is richly inlaid with sculpted gold, it is the quality of the craftsmanship of each of the gun’s components that marks this rifle as a masterpiece of 18th century gun making.
The quality of the firearms in this group made them a favourite of early 20th-century collectors. The majority of surviving examples were collected by the Swiss diplomat, arms and armour scholar and adventurer Henri Moser-Charlottenfels (1844-1923) and are in the Bern Historical Museum. Notably, one of these, which is particularly close to the present example in both size and decoration, is stamped with ‘work of Kuchek’ (Rudolf Zeller and Ernst F. Rohrer, Orientalische Sammlung Henri Moser-Charlottenfels, Bern, 1955, pp. 269-70, no. 322). Our rifle first appears in the historical record in 1931, when it formed part of the collection of the Lyon banker Prester Holstein, another giant of arms and armour scholarship, who described it as an “arme enorme et très lourde” – a most imposing weapon.
The appeal of this exceptional rifle to the connoisseur is underscored by its subsequent acquisition by William Keith Neal, the three-time Master of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers and arguably the world’s most renowned twentieth-century scholar of antique firearms. A collector of some of the finest firearms ever made, including masterpieces from the personal collection of Louis XIII, himself a keen firearms enthusiast, this imposing 20-bore rifle nevertheless took pride of place at his home.
The quality of the firearms in this group made them a favourite of early 20th-century collectors. The majority of surviving examples were collected by the Swiss diplomat, arms and armour scholar and adventurer Henri Moser-Charlottenfels (1844-1923) and are in the Bern Historical Museum. Notably, one of these, which is particularly close to the present example in both size and decoration, is stamped with ‘work of Kuchek’ (Rudolf Zeller and Ernst F. Rohrer, Orientalische Sammlung Henri Moser-Charlottenfels, Bern, 1955, pp. 269-70, no. 322). Our rifle first appears in the historical record in 1931, when it formed part of the collection of the Lyon banker Prester Holstein, another giant of arms and armour scholarship, who described it as an “arme enorme et très lourde” – a most imposing weapon.
The appeal of this exceptional rifle to the connoisseur is underscored by its subsequent acquisition by William Keith Neal, the three-time Master of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers and arguably the world’s most renowned twentieth-century scholar of antique firearms. A collector of some of the finest firearms ever made, including masterpieces from the personal collection of Louis XIII, himself a keen firearms enthusiast, this imposing 20-bore rifle nevertheless took pride of place at his home.