THE PROPERTY OF A COLLECTOR
A Fine 20-Bore Flintlock Pistol
BY HENRY HADLEY, LONDON, LONDON SILVER HALLMARKS FOR 1766
Details
A Fine 20-Bore Flintlock Pistol
By Henry Hadley, London, London silver hallmarks for 1766
With two-stage barrel in the Spanish manner slightly belled at the muzzle and with silver spider fore-sight and turned girdle, the octagonal breech inlaid with numerous decorative gold marks with three gold lines at the rear, and gold-lined touch-hole, the top flat with Hadley's own two gold-lined stamps in the Spanish fashion, grooved tang finely engraved with a rocaille, flowers and foliage on a matted ground, flat lock engraved en suite, signed within a rococo cartouche and with stepped tail, engraved safety-catch, and gold-lined pan (cock retaining screw missing), figured walnut full stock (minor bruising) carved in relief with a shell behind the barrel tang, and full silver mounts finely cast and chased in relief with shells, flowers, foliage and grotesque masks, including pierced side-plate, trophy of arms escutcheon, and spurred pommel with grotesque mask cap, retaining its original silver-tipped ramrod with worm (one barrel-bolt replaced), London proof marks and Foreigner's mark, silver maker's mark of John King
12 7/8in. (32.7cm.)
Henry Hadley is first recorded in the minutes of the Gunmakers' Company in 1735 and he died in 1773. Although he was never free of the Gunmakers' Company, he is recognised as one of the most important English 18th Century gunmakers, especially noted for a series of silver-mounted pistols with Spanish-style barrels, finest pair of which were sold at Christie's on 27 March 1996 for the record sum of /p166,500.
The engraving on the iron parts of the present pistol may be the work of William Sharpe 'of the Little Minories London Ingraver (sic)', who is mentioned in Hadley's will, and who engraved the Great Seal of the Master General of Ordnance in 1762. For a double-barrelled Hadley pistol with mounts of the same design as the present pistol see W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1740-1790, plates 507-10
By Henry Hadley, London, London silver hallmarks for 1766
With two-stage barrel in the Spanish manner slightly belled at the muzzle and with silver spider fore-sight and turned girdle, the octagonal breech inlaid with numerous decorative gold marks with three gold lines at the rear, and gold-lined touch-hole, the top flat with Hadley's own two gold-lined stamps in the Spanish fashion, grooved tang finely engraved with a rocaille, flowers and foliage on a matted ground, flat lock engraved en suite, signed within a rococo cartouche and with stepped tail, engraved safety-catch, and gold-lined pan (cock retaining screw missing), figured walnut full stock (minor bruising) carved in relief with a shell behind the barrel tang, and full silver mounts finely cast and chased in relief with shells, flowers, foliage and grotesque masks, including pierced side-plate, trophy of arms escutcheon, and spurred pommel with grotesque mask cap, retaining its original silver-tipped ramrod with worm (one barrel-bolt replaced), London proof marks and Foreigner's mark, silver maker's mark of John King
12 7/8in. (32.7cm.)
Henry Hadley is first recorded in the minutes of the Gunmakers' Company in 1735 and he died in 1773. Although he was never free of the Gunmakers' Company, he is recognised as one of the most important English 18th Century gunmakers, especially noted for a series of silver-mounted pistols with Spanish-style barrels, finest pair of which were sold at Christie's on 27 March 1996 for the record sum of /p166,500.
The engraving on the iron parts of the present pistol may be the work of William Sharpe 'of the Little Minories London Ingraver (sic)', who is mentioned in Hadley's will, and who engraved the Great Seal of the Master General of Ordnance in 1762. For a double-barrelled Hadley pistol with mounts of the same design as the present pistol see W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1740-1790, plates 507-10