BY HARMAN BARNE, LONDON, CIRCA 1660

Details

A Rare 34-Bore Flintlock Turn-Over Sporting Gun In The Continental Manner
By Harman Barne, London, circa 1660
With shortened two-stage barrels released by upward pressure on the trigger-guard and retained at the muzzle by a figure-eight iron ring bearing the bead fore-sights, the breech sections octagonal then sixteen-sided, engraved with bands of stylised foliage, and each signed 'H. Barne' in script on the top flat and with applied chiselled back-sight, long engraved tang, signed rounded chiselled back-action lock engraved with a lion and a Classical warrior in a landscape, finely pierced and chiselled Bérainesque cock and steels, moulded figured walnut full stock (minor chips and bruising) carved in relief with foliage behind the barrel tang (butt extended), iron mounts including pierced flat side-plate finely engraved with a recumbent figure slaying a monster, trigger-guard with pierced and engraved finial, engraved trigger-plate, pierced trigger, slotted baluster ramrod-pipes, and two iron-capped wooden ramrods (one ramrod replaced, iron parts with scattered surface pitting), London proof marks
32½in. (82.5cm.) barrels

Literature

Richard Akehurst, Sporting Guns, plate 15
W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, pp. 114-115, plates 27 a-d

Exhibited

The Game Fair, Longleat House, 1962

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

Harman Barne, probably a Dutch immigrant, is the best known of the earlier English gunmakers. He worked for Prince Rupert (1619-82), Count Palatine of the Rhine and nephew of Charles I, and a general of the Royalist armies during the Civil War. Barne was imprisoned in 1650 as a result of his services to the Royalists, and then allowed to work under bond in the London area, obtaining his freedom of the Gunmakers' Company in 1657. In 1660 he successfully petitioned King Charles II for the appointment of Royal Handgun Maker, and died the following year
The form of the cock and steels is close to a design published by Jean Bérain in Paris 1659 and 1667 (see illustration)
For further information on Barne, see J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. 1, pp. 212-215; W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, op. cit., pp. 97-113

More from FINE ANTIQUE FIREARMS FROM THE W KEITH NEAL COLLECTION

View All