BY JOHN LAMBE, SALISBURY, CIRCA 1730

Details

A 14-Bore Breech-Loading Flintlock Park Rifle
By John Lambe, Salisbury, circa 1730
With swamped two-stage sighted barrel cut with twelve grooves, the breech section with traces of the signature 'John Lambe Sarum', and threaded plug removed for loading and acting as an additional back-sight, border engraved tang, signed flat border engraved lock with faceted jaws, pan, and steel, figured walnut full stock (an early working replacement) with raised foliate panel at the barrel tang and rear ramrod-pipe, iron mounts including pierced foliate side-plate, the trigger-guard with first pattern acorn finial, three baluster ramrod-pipes, and later wooden ramrod (barrel and mounts pitted)
42¼in. (107.3cm.) barrel

Provenance

J.N. George (according to Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740), for whom, see footnote to lot 116

Literature

J.N. George, English Guns and Rifles, pp. 139-140, plate IX (2)
W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, pp. 450-451, plates 202 a, b
Michael Snell, Salisbury Gunsmiths, pp. 21-23, fig. 10

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

For details of John Lambe, Sr. (d. 1740) and Jr. (d. 1772), see Michael Snell, op. cit., pp. 19-28
Cf. a similar rifle formerly in the Clay P. Bedford Collection, exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1971 (cat. no. 136)

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