BY JACQUES-LOUIS ARAULT, VERSAILLES, CIRCA 1765

Details

A 20-Bore French Flintlock Sporting Gun
By Jacques-Louis Arault, Versailles, circa 1765
With two-stage barrel, octagonal then polygonal, and silver fore-sight surrounded by gilt scrollwork, the breech section with gilt maker's monogram (Neue Støckel 7035) within lines of punched and gilt dots and further gilt decoration against traces of blued finish, brass-lined touch-hole, the underside of the breech with barrel-forger's marks of a member of the Leclerc family of Paris, engraved tang, shaped flat bevelled lock signed on a tablet and finely engraved with attributes of gardening on the stepped tail, moulded figured walnut half-stock (reduced from full, repairs to fore-stock) carved in relief with scrollwork behind the barrel tang and rear ramrod-pipe, engraved iron mounts including shaped solid side-plate and chiselled trigger-guard, velvet-covered cheek-piece, and brass-tipped bone ramrod, the two forward pipes of silver, engraved in various places 'No. 3' (some wear throughout, scattered light pitting)
38½in. (97.8cm.) barrel

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

Jacques-Louis Arault (recorded in Paris and Versailles circa 1742-80), was gunmaker to the Dauphin (later King Louis XVI), and subsequently to his brother, the Comte d'Artois. Arault is the maker of a superb gold-inlaid fowling-piece with chiselled steel mounts in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (inv. no. W 2890), illustrated in J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. II, plates 11a, b

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