BY FELIX WERDER OF ZÜRICH, CIRCA 1640-50

Details

A FINE AND RARE PAIR OF SWISS WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS
BY FELIX WERDER OF ZÜRICH, CIRCA 1640-50
With gilt-brass octagonal barrels engraved at muzzles and breeches with hatched foliage, engraved short pointed tangs, gilt-brass lock plates of characteristic beveled form, engraved overall with hatched scrolling foliage and fitted with highly polished iron dogs, springs, pan covers, and exposed wheels, as well as gilt brass wheel guides, bridles and pans, ebonized fruitwood full stocks with mounts of gilt-brass including triggers and trigger-guards, pommels cast with a grotesque masks in high relief, quatrefoil washers for side-screws, ramrod-pipes and fore-end caps, each with a wooden ramrod with a gilt-brass tip.
Overall length: 20 in.
The successful bidder will be responsible for arranging their own shipments or collecting in-person and will be responsible for applicable New York taxes.

Provenance

Prince Friedrich von Hohenzollern, Hohenzollern Collection, Sigmaringen Castle, inv. no. 2133 a/b.
James M Hodgson, Washington, D.C., who acquired the pair by exchange with the Sigmaringen Castle Museum on August 10, 1952.
With Charles H. Moses, Ashtabula, OH, by 1955.
Acquired by Russell Barnett Aitken from the above,1966.

Literature

Hans Schedelmann,”Felix Werder Goldschmied und Büchsenmacher in Zürich,” Alte und Neue Kunst, Zürich, nr. 13, 1953, pp 8-9, illustrated
F. Theodore Dexter, The Weapons Arts Museum, Burbank, CA, cat. no. 1, 1955, no. 214, pp. 22, 29, 36-7, plates 28, 28A
Hy Hunter, Hand Guns of the World, Los Angeles, 1956, p. 25 (illustrated)
J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. I, first edition, London, 1962, p. 291, plate 44a
J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. I, 2^nd edition, London, 1965, p. 318, plate 56a
Merrill Lindsay, One Hundred Great Guns, New York, 1967, p. 48
Hans Schedelmann, Die Großen Büchsenmacher, Braunschweig, 1972, p.128
Arne Hoff, “The Significance of 'Inventor' in Felix Werder's Signature,” in R. Held ed., Arms and Armor Annual, I, Northfield, IL,1973, pp. 161-69.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Celebrated Swiss gunmaker and goldsmith Felix Werder (1591-1673) was a member of the Zürich Goldsmith's guild, of which he became a master in 1616. His earliest and most richly decorated known firearm dated 1630, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 10.42), while his latest, a flintlock gun in the Imperial Armory, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (A.1454), is dated 1652.In all about thirty firearms by Werder are known to have survived, most of them wheel-locks, and few are signed. Werder's innovation was the manufacture of strong thin cast-brass barrels by a cold-hammering process that rendered them strong, lightweight, and elegant. The present pair, also unsigned, have gilt brass barrels, lockplates, and mounts fitted to stocks of contrasting ebonized fruitwood. These features, and particularly the grotesque mask on the butt plate, are characteristic of his firearms. The city of Zurich appears to have presented Werder’s distinctive firearms as diplomatic gifts, as examples are recorded in the Habsburg armory in Vienna and in the French royal cabinet d’armes in Paris.

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