BY BIDET & HUTCHINSON, LONDON, LONDON BRITANNIA STANDARD SILVER HALLMARKS FOR 1716

Details

An Extremly Rare Silver-Mounted Flintlock Blunderbuss
By Bidet & Hutchinson, London, London Britannia Standard silver hallmarks for 1716
With three-stage belled iron barrel, the breech section indistinctly signed, octagonal then polygonal, and stepped at the rear, foliate engraved tang, rounded foliate engraved lock signed within a cartouche and with safety-catch set high up on the tail (cock repaired), moulded lightly carved figured walnut full stock with raised acanthus apron at the barrel tang, and inlaid with silver wire scrolls, full cast silver mounts decorated in relief with foliage involving a grotesque mask and a monster-head, pierced side-plate, hallmarked trigger-guard and butt-plate, silver baluster ramrod-pipes, and later silver-capped ramrod, the right side of the butt with engraved silver escutcheon bearing the owner's initials (iron parts with some rust pitting), London proof marks, silver maker's mark of John Hely
29in. (74.3cm.)

Provenance

The Marquess of Sligo, Westport House, Co. Mayo

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, p. 335, plates 138a, b

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

The late owner's note in the barrel reads: 'This blunderbuss bears the initials of the owner, P.B., for Peter Browne ... Peter Browne was great-grandfather of the first Marquess of Sligo and he died in 1722. This is the only example I have ever seen of a silver mounted blunderbuss bearing London hallmarks of the George I period. Bidet & Hutchinson were both well known London gunmakers, but this is the only gun I have seen bearing their joint names ...'

For information on S.(?) Bidet (of La Chaumette system fame), and William Hutchinson see ibid., pp. 336-7, 346

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