BY JOHANN STIFFTER (SIC), PRAGUE, DATED 1682
Details
A Fine 28-Bore Bohemian Wheel-Lock Sporting Rifle
By Johann Stiffter (sic), Prague, dated 1682
With swamped octagonal sighted barrel (fore-sight missing) cut with nine grooves, signed and dated and struck with maker's mark (Neue Stckel 1045), the breech cut with a naked figure of Porsepine flanked by foliage and monster-heads, with a band of beadwork and another of foliage beneath, the tang chiselled with Pluto in low relief, signed flat lock chiselled in low relief with Vulcan at his forge watched by Venus and Cupid, all on a hatched ground, the wheel-cover decorated with putti, mermen, and a heart, the cock chiselled in high relief with Mars, monsters and foliage, and the pan-cover with foliage and a putto, flush-fitting pan-cover release button, figured full stock (small repair at front of lock) inlaid with staghorn lines, pellets, stars, engraved panels, and scenes of the chase, and on the cheek-piece with Saint Hubert kneeling before the apparition of the crucifiction between a stag's antlers in a wooded landscape, horn-inlaid patch-box cover (base-plate replaced) engraved with a figure of Fortune, engraved horn butt-plate (button missing), fore-end cap and ramrod-pipes, indented iron trigger-guard chiselled with flowers and foliage in relief, set trigger, and horn-tipped ramrod (tip replaced)
32in. (82.5cm.) barrel
Hans (Johann) Stifter, whose mark appears on the barrel, is recorded in Prague between 1648 and 1677. This rifle was presumably made by son Johann Christof, of Prague and Dresden, who is recorded from 1649 until his death in 1720, and took over his father's workshop in 1677
By Johann Stiffter (sic), Prague, dated 1682
With swamped octagonal sighted barrel (fore-sight missing) cut with nine grooves, signed and dated and struck with maker's mark (Neue Stckel 1045), the breech cut with a naked figure of Porsepine flanked by foliage and monster-heads, with a band of beadwork and another of foliage beneath, the tang chiselled with Pluto in low relief, signed flat lock chiselled in low relief with Vulcan at his forge watched by Venus and Cupid, all on a hatched ground, the wheel-cover decorated with putti, mermen, and a heart, the cock chiselled in high relief with Mars, monsters and foliage, and the pan-cover with foliage and a putto, flush-fitting pan-cover release button, figured full stock (small repair at front of lock) inlaid with staghorn lines, pellets, stars, engraved panels, and scenes of the chase, and on the cheek-piece with Saint Hubert kneeling before the apparition of the crucifiction between a stag's antlers in a wooded landscape, horn-inlaid patch-box cover (base-plate replaced) engraved with a figure of Fortune, engraved horn butt-plate (button missing), fore-end cap and ramrod-pipes, indented iron trigger-guard chiselled with flowers and foliage in relief, set trigger, and horn-tipped ramrod (tip replaced)
32in. (82.5cm.) barrel
Hans (Johann) Stifter, whose mark appears on the barrel, is recorded in Prague between 1648 and 1677. This rifle was presumably made by son Johann Christof, of Prague and Dresden, who is recorded from 1649 until his death in 1720, and took over his father's workshop in 1677
Provenance
The Cranbrook Academy of Arts, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, U.S.A., Sotheby & Co., London, 15 May 1972, Lot 113 (3,300)