BY J. DELPIRE, ARMURIER DU 7EM REGT. SUISSE DE LA GARDE ROYALE, PARIS, CIRCA 1820

Details

Another French Set Of Armourer's Tools
By J. Delpire, Armurier du 7em Regt. Suisse de la Garde Royale, Paris, circa 1820
Entirely of steel, and of similar form, comprising hammer, two drifts each with turned faceted finial screwing into its fluted head, pliers, file, worm, bore-scraper, extractor, multiple turnscrew, some with fluted stems, and pierced fluted barrel-shaped handle for use with four of the above, the turnscrew surmounted by a flattened disk signed in full on one side and engraved with the royal arms of France on the other, each tool, apart from the rods, screwing into a partly fluted vice clamp terminating in a further turnscrew
67/8in. (17.5cm.)

Provenance

Henri André, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 9-10 June 1947, lot 275

Literature

H.L. Blackmore, Firearms, p. 101
Idem, Guns and Rifles of the World, plate 821, p. 102

Exhibited

The Art of the Armourer, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 19 April-5 May 1963, no. 305 (illustrated)
The Armouries, H.M. Tower of London

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Similar sets of tools are illustrated and described in H.R. d'Allemagne (ed.), Musée Le Secq des Tournelles à Rouen: Ferronnerie Ancienne, Paris, 1924, plate CCC LXXV, but this and another, almost identical example sold by Sotheby & Co., New York, 15 January 1991, lot 573 (US$7,150), are the most elaborate of their kind recorded. They were presumably carried by the regimental armourer whose name they bear. The 7th Swiss Regiment of the French Army was in service from 1816 to 1830

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