AN IMPORTANT WHEEL-LOCK SPORTING RIFLE STOCKED BY JOHANN MICHAEL MAUCHER, with swamped octagonal sighted barrel rifled with eight grooves and engraved behind the back-sight with the letters ·H.V.G· (for Haas von Gmünd), the breech engraved with flowers and foliage and stamped twice with a mark, a unicorn (Neue Støckel 4942), for Schwäbisch-Gmünd, flat lock engraved with foliage, two stags, and a hind, pierced flat wheel-cover engraved with two lions, the cock pierced and engraved with a bird and engraved on the top jaw with a monster-head, the flash-guard with pierced finial, fruitwood full stock (slight damage) carved in relief with a stag, a bear and boar hunts, lions, a falconer, fruit and foliage, with a cherub's mask in high relief on the underside of the stock in front of the trigger-guard, and inset with thin ivory plaques finely carved and pierced with further scenes of the chase in wooded landscapes, and opposite the lock with Saint George and the Dragon, the patch-box cover with an ivory plaque carved in high relief with the figure of Saint Eustace, a hound beneath and a putto-mask above, plain horn butt-plate, finely engraved horn ramrod-pipes and fore-end cap, iron trigger-guard, set trigger, and horn-tipped ramrod, the cheek-piece inlaid in engraved mother-of-pearl with two single-headed eagles, one clutching a sceptre, and the other an orb and cross, with central vacant oval cartouche, behind the barrel-tang a dark horn plaque stamped 'Iohan Michael· Mavcher· Bildavwer· Vnnd Bixenshifter· zve· Schweb· Gemend·', circa 168030¼in. barrel [E.187, S.26]

AN IMPORTANT WHEEL-LOCK SPORTING RIFLE STOCKED BY JOHANN MICHAEL MAUCHER, with swamped octagonal sighted barrel rifled with eight grooves and engraved behind the back-sight with the letters ·H.V.G· (for Haas von Gmünd), the breech engraved with flowers and foliage and stamped twice with a mark, a unicorn (Neue Støckel 4942), for Schwäbisch-Gmünd, flat lock engraved with foliage, two stags, and a hind, pierced flat wheel-cover engraved with two lions, the cock pierced and engraved with a bird and engraved on the top jaw with a monster-head, the flash-guard with pierced finial, fruitwood full stock (slight damage) carved in relief with a stag, a bear and boar hunts, lions, a falconer, fruit and foliage, with a cherub's mask in high relief on the underside of the stock in front of the trigger-guard, and inset with thin ivory plaques finely carved and pierced with further scenes of the chase in wooded landscapes, and opposite the lock with Saint George and the Dragon, the patch-box cover with an ivory plaque carved in high relief with the figure of Saint Eustace, a hound beneath and a putto-mask above, plain horn butt-plate, finely engraved horn ramrod-pipes and fore-end cap, iron trigger-guard, set trigger, and horn-tipped ramrod, the cheek-piece inlaid in engraved mother-of-pearl with two single-headed eagles, one clutching a sceptre, and the other an orb and cross, with central vacant oval cartouche, behind the barrel-tang a dark horn plaque stamped 'Iohan Michael· Mavcher· Bildavwer· Vnnd Bixenshifter· zve· Schweb· Gemend·', circa 1680 30¼in. barrel [E.187, S.26]

Details

Literature

Ehrenthal, plate III
A. Hoff,'Die Waffensammlung in Schloß Dyck', p.135, plate 4

Lot Essay

The barrel is by Johannes Haas, who died in 1704

The Swabian stockmaker Johann Michael Maucher was born into a family of wood, ivory and amber carvers in Schwäbisch-Gmünd in 1645, and worked there until 1688. He moved to Augsburg, then Würzburg in about 1693, where he died in 1701.
He is known to have made other similarly decorated objects of all kinds in ivory and wood, including figures and several large ewers and basins. Like the firearms such objects were intended as items for display, rather than for use.
Prince Johann Adam Andreas von Liechtenstein (1657-1712) thought so highly of the Maucher rifle still in the Liechtenstein collection (Inv. no.859), that it was included in the still life painted for him by Dirk Valckenburg in 1698-9. Maucher is reported to have presented a richly decorated gun to Leopold I in 1688. This apparently no longer exists.
About thirty firearms by Maucher have survived, mostly longarms, but only some of them are signed. Most of them are now in public collections, the largest group being in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Münich

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