A 38-BORE FRENCH WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOL

SIGNED 'AGRISOLE', CIRCA 1620

Details

A 38-BORE FRENCH WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOL
Signed 'Agrisole', circa 1620
With tapering barrel finely chiselled and gilt throughout its length against a dark punched ground with scrolls bearing monster-heads, flowers, fruit and foliage involving a double-headed eagle toward the shaped muzzle and below it, in high relief, figures of Minerva (?), Juno, a Roman general, Cupid and St. George (?), the last three each surmounted by a canopy, long chiselled and gilt tang extending to the pommel and decorated with masks and trophies of arms, bevelled gilt lock signed on the bottom edge, chiselled against a dark ground with scrollwork terminating in leaves and flower-heads, and decorated with masks in relief and three-dimensional fabulous figures, etched wheel with gilt retaining bracket in the form of a Roman Emperor, chiselled and gilt cock in the form of a monster-head supported by a monkey playing the bagpipes, the bridle to the engraved cock-spring formed as a recumbent naked male figure in the round with a similar smaller figure as the spring finial, chiselled and gilt sliding pan-cover, fruitwood full stock inlaid on the butt with silver wire, chiselled and gilt side-plate, at its centre a medallion decorated with Saint George and the dragon, gilt iron trigger-guard pierced with a naked male figure in combat with a lion and issuing from the mouth of a marine monster, chiselled and gilt supporting plate extending to the pommel and with sea-monster finial, shaped pommel encircled by eight inset oval medallions chiselled and gilt with male and female profile portrait busts, and with circular cap decorated with a mounted classical warrior, pierced and chiselled ramrod-pipes, chiselled and gilt fore-end cap, and original wooden ramrod with chiselled and gilt tip, the ferrule etched and gilt
23 in. (59 cm.)

Provenance

Rothschild inv. no. LR340.

Literature

L. Ruprecht, Katalog der Sonderschau: Meister des Eisenschnittes, Vienna, 1941.
J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, London, 1962, vol. 1, pp. 140 and 285, pls. 19a and b (showing the pair to the present pistol).
B. Thomas, O. Gamber and H. Schedelmann, Arms and Armour, Masterpieces by European Craftsmen from the Thirteenth to the Nineteenth Century, London, 1964, no. 71.
J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, 2nd edn., London, 1965, vol. 1, pp. 150 and 310, pls. 27 a and b (showing the pair to the present pistol).
B. Thomas, Alte und Moderne Kunst, Vienna, 1968, vol. 98, pl. 23.
H. Schedelmann, Die Grossen Bchsenmacher, Brunswick, 1972, p. 79, pl. 137.

Exhibited

Vienna, Sonderschau: Meister des Eisenschnittes, 1941.
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. A 2241a, from 1967.

Lot Essay

This pistol is one of a pair, both of which were stolen in 1984. Subsequently only the present pistol was recovered. It is recognised as one of the very finest pistols in existence, and is almost certainly of royal provenance, albeit without the incised number which would identify it in the inventory of the Cabinet d'Armes of King Louis XIII.

It has been suggested, in view of the portrait bust of King Henry IV of France (1553-1610, reg. 1589-1610) ) and perhaps that of his son, King Louis XIII (1601-1643, reg. 1610-1643), that the pair were a gift from the latter to the recipient indicated by the double-headed eagle on each barrel.

The inscription 'Agrisole' should probably be read as ' Grisole', and is thus likely to point to their place of manufacture (Grisolles lies to the north of Toulouse), in the same way as the early flintlock gun of 1630 in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (inv. no. L 316) is inscribed 'Faict. A. Turene' (Turenne, between Toulouse and Limoges).

The decoration on the barrels is derived from engravings by Etienne Delaune (1518/19-1582). The treatment of the locks is closely similar to the work of Jean Henequin of Metz in Lorraine, as seen on a wheel-lock gun made in 1621 for King Louis XIII, in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (inv. no. W 1933), and in his pattern-book of designs for gun locks of circa 1620.

The 'A Grisole' pistols represent a pinnacle of achievement at a time when the French gunmakers, many of them provincial, were the leaders in elegance as well as technical development.

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