A FINE AND RARE FRENCH FLINTLOCK GARNITURE COMPRISING A PAIR OF 22-BORE PISTOLS AND AN 18-BORE FLINTLOCK FOWLING-PIECE

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A FINE AND RARE FRENCH FLINTLOCK GARNITURE COMPRISING A PAIR OF 22-BORE PISTOLS AND AN 18-BORE FLINTLOCK FOWLING-PIECE

BY LE LORRAIN A VALENCE, CIRCA 1690-1700

The pistols each with silver fore-sight let into the full-length sighting flat, the breeches each engraved with a band of foliage and with a raised longitudinal rib on each side, border engraved tangs, signed rounded locks with moulded border and each engraved with a band of foliage beneath the pan (one cock later, the other partly replaced), moulded figured walnut full stocks, iron mounts comprising elaborately pierced side-plates chiselled in relief with foliage and monster-heads, spurred pommels, shaped stepped trigger-guards, and plain shaped escutcheons, blued trigger-plates, and spirally fluted ramrod-pipes, and original iron-capped ramrods (one trigger finial incomplete), the fowling-piece en suite, with brass fore-sight, blued steel-spring, top jaw and screw, moulded butt-plate engraved 'No 16', and with separate waved tang in the form of a monstrous serpent, and original iron-capped ramrod (the stocks with minor defects, one pistol with some light pitting)
15 1/8in. and 46 5/8in. barrels (3)

Lot Essay

Cf. a very similar holster pistol in the Victoria & Albert Museum (No. M. 10-1949)

Le Lorrain à Valence was one of the most distinguished of the French provincial gunmakers of the 18th Century

See J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, Vol. II, p. 53, plates 9b and 10b

A companion garniture bears the arms of the Counts of Lichtenberg, for whom both garnitures were probably made. They are among the earliest of firearms by this maker to have survived. Cf. a fowling-piece sold in these Rooms on 20 February 1991, lot 109

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