BY FRANCIS SMART, LONDON, CIRCA 1715

細節

A Fine And Rare Pair Of 16-Bore Flintlock Fowling-Pieces
By Francis Smart, London, circa 1715
Each with swamped three-stage sighted barrel divided by mouldings, the breech section octagonal changing to sixteen-sided, engraved with bands of foliage, and signed on the top flat 'F. Smart. Londini. Fecit', border engraved rectangular tang with a band of beadwork at the front, signed lightly engraved rounded lock with moulded border and engraved stud safety-catch to the rear of the cock, the steel chiselled in relief with a spray of foliage, moulded figured walnut full stock (minor bruising) carved in relief with acanthus foliage and with raised apron at the barrel tang, and inlaid with lines and scrollwork in silver wire (minor losses) terminating, on each side of the barrel tang, in a monster-head, silver wire inlay terminating in a tulip in place of an escutcheon, engraved iron mounts with chiselled foliate finials, chiselled foliate side-plate, border engraved trigger-plate, three baluster ramrod-pipes, no tail-pipe, and original iron-capped ramrod (some minor surface pitting and wear to engraving, mainly on the breeches and one butt-plate, small chip from the edge of one steel), London proof marks
43¾in. (111.1cm.) (2)

來源

The family armoury of the Earls of Dunmore, Dunmore Park, Stirlingshire

出版

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, pp. 396-7, plates 165 a-c

注意事項

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

拍品專文

Francis Smart was apprenticed to Godfrey Taylor in 1686, and free of the Gunmakers' Company in 1693. He was gunmaker to the Office of Ordnance, 1695-1720, to the Hudson's Bay Company, 1715-1724, and to the Royal African Company, 1707-1717. The last documentary reference to him is in 1725. He is the maker of the only known signed English snaphaunce so far recorded (W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, op. cit, pp. 394-5, plates 16 a-d)
For the Earls of Dunmore, especially John Murray, 4th Earl, the last British Governor of the Colony of Virginia, see footnote to the preceding lot