AN EXTREMELY RARE PAIR OF ENGLISH 20-BORE SILVER-MOUNTED BREECH-LOADING FLINTLOCK PISTOLS

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AN EXTREMELY RARE PAIR OF ENGLISH 20-BORE SILVER-MOUNTED BREECH-LOADING FLINTLOCK PISTOLS

BY HENRY ELLIS, DONCASTER, CIRCA 1690-1700

With turn-off two-stage barrels chiselled with foliage in relief and with shaped moulded ring at the muzzle, the breeches chiselled with a shaped cartouche and foliage in relief, plain tangs, signed rounded locks chiselled with scrolling foliage in relief and involving a grotesque on the tail, cocks and steels chiselled with foliage en suite, moulded figured walnut fore-stocks carved with scrolling foliage and retained by two screws, moulded figured walnut butts, iron trigger-guards (one replaced) each with pierced foliate finial, chiselled grotesque mask on the bow and incorporating the D-shaped barrel-release, cast and chased silver mounts comprising pierced foliate side-plates each terminating in a grotesque bearded human head, escutcheon originally engraved with owner's crest (erased), a grotesque head above and below, and spurred pommels decorated with scrolling foliage in relief and with grotesque mask cap (iron parts with rust patination)
17¼in. (2)

Lot Essay

Henry Ellis was one of the most distinguished of the English seventeenth-century provincial gunmakers, and his production seems to date from about 1690, and to extend to at least 1712, when he appears as 'Gunsmith' in the records of the Borough of Doncaster. He was admitted to the freedom of Doncaster on 15 November 1698, and he died in 1722 or 1723

Cf. a pair of holster pistols by the same maker with almost identical side-plates and escutcheons formerly in the Clay P. Bedford Collection (Bedford 1509), illustrated and described in Early Firearms of Great Britain and Ireland From the Collection of Clay P. Bedford, pp. 21-2; and Gusler and Lavin, Decorated Firearms 1540-1870 From the Collection of Clay P. Bedford, pp. 96-7

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