BY EDWARD WORNALL, LONDON, CIRCA 1690

Details

A Pair Of 22-Bore Flintlock Holster Pistols
By Edward Wornall, London, circa 1690
With heavy swamped three-stage sighted barrels (some pitting), the engraved breech sections octagonal then polygonal and each with faint signature 'Wornall Londini' on the top flat, tangs engraved with strawberry foliage and a monster-head, signed rounded locks engraved with further strawberry foliage and with an angel on each tail, engraved cocks and steels, moulded flame-burnt ash full stocks each with pronounced swelling near the ramrod tail-pipe, and raised apron at the barrel tang (one fore-end cracked), engraved brass mounts, spurred pommels each with grotesque mask cap, pierced side-plates involving two monsters, pierced escutcheons each surmounted by a grotesque mask and engraved with owner's crest, a griffin, baluster ramrod-pipes, and brass-capped ramrods (some wear and pitting, mainly on barrels, one ramrod later)
19¾in. (50.2cm.) (2)

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

Cf. a similar pair of pistols with silver mounts formerly in the Clay P. Bedford Collection, exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1971 (cat. no. 14), and a pocket pistol in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. M 185-1928), illustrated in Claude Blair, Pistols of the World, plate 297

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