AN EXCEPTIONAL PAIR OF SILVER-MOUNTED FLINTLOCK DUELLING PISTOLS with heavy octagonal browned twist barrels signed in gold and each with gold fore-sight, single gold line at the breech, and gold-lined touch-hole, case-hardened tangs finely engraved with martial trophies, signed case-hardened detented bevelled locks with rollers, blued safety-catches also locking the steels, and gold-lined semi-rainproof pans, highly figured walnut half-stocks, chequered butts, silver mounts of exceptional quality comprising finely engraved trigger-guards (spurs removed), butt-caps cast and chased with an elaborate trophy of arms above a satyr-mask, all in high relief against a punched ground, side-plates pierced and chased with a trophy of arms in high relief, rococo escutcheons with faint traces of a crest, and rear ramrod-pipes also cast and chased in relief, silver barrel-bolt escutcheons and fore-end caps, blued triggers, and original horn-tipped ramrods, retaining most of their original finish throughout (minor pitting on each barrel rib): in fitted relined brass-mounted mahogany case with cleaning rod and three-way flask covered in mottled leather, by John Manton, London, No. 1921 for 1793, London silver hallmarks, with maker's mark of Moses Brent but without date letter15in.

AN EXCEPTIONAL PAIR OF SILVER-MOUNTED FLINTLOCK DUELLING PISTOLS with heavy octagonal browned twist barrels signed in gold and each with gold fore-sight, single gold line at the breech, and gold-lined touch-hole, case-hardened tangs finely engraved with martial trophies, signed case-hardened detented bevelled locks with rollers, blued safety-catches also locking the steels, and gold-lined semi-rainproof pans, highly figured walnut half-stocks, chequered butts, silver mounts of exceptional quality comprising finely engraved trigger-guards (spurs removed), butt-caps cast and chased with an elaborate trophy of arms above a satyr-mask, all in high relief against a punched ground, side-plates pierced and chased with a trophy of arms in high relief, rococo escutcheons with faint traces of a crest, and rear ramrod-pipes also cast and chased in relief, silver barrel-bolt escutcheons and fore-end caps, blued triggers, and original horn-tipped ramrods, retaining most of their original finish throughout (minor pitting on each barrel rib): in fitted relined brass-mounted mahogany case with cleaning rod and three-way flask covered in mottled leather, by John Manton, London, No. 1921 for 1793, London silver hallmarks, with maker's mark of Moses Brent but without date letter 15in.

Details

Provenance

Major Hugh Pollard
Major H.W. Hall
Anon. sale, Sotheby & Co., 16 October 1967, lot 171

Literature

Wilfrid Ward, 'Duels & Duelling', p. 449
'British Pistol Duelling and its Weapons', p. 11 and front cover
'Weapons of Honour', p. 965
'An Honourable Affair - The Duellist's Code', p. 42

Further details

END OF SALE

Lot Essay

By tradition made for Richard, 1st Marquis of Hertford (1719-1794), great-grandfather of the founder of the Wallace Collection

These pistols belong to a very limited group of John Manton pistols with equally exuberant silver mounts. A fully stocked pair in the Keith Neal Collection bear the serial number 1919, and are illustrated in The Manton Supplement, plate 165 (colour frontispiece). Another fully stocked pair, formerly in the Clay P. Bedford Collection, are illustrated in Early Firearms of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 68. These bear the serial number 2837 for 1797 and are recorded in The Mantons, p. 73.
A third pair, also fully stocked, in the collection of Norman Dixon, are serial numbered 1166 and illustrated and described in Georgian Pistols, pp. 65-69. The present pistols are therefore the only half-stocked pair of the four so far recorded.
All of them were presumably intended for presentation

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