VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus bu… 顯示更多

A Very Rare 32-Bore Austrian Break-Action Breech-Loading Snap-Lock Sporting Rifle

BY MICHAEL GULL, VIENNA, CIRCA 1650-60

細節

A Very Rare 32-Bore Austrian Break-Action Breech-Loading Snap-Lock Sporting Rifle
By Michael Gull, Vienna, circa 1650-60
With signed sighted swamped octagonal barrel (some rust staining) cut with seven grooves, engraved with foliage at the rear of the breech, and released by two spring-catches in front of the trigger-guard, rifled reloadable iron cartridge with attached pan and steel, shaped faceted tang (small hole) engraved with a grotesque mask, profile heads, and foliage, iron action engraved with flowers and foliage involving a dog, a serpent, a bird, and two recumbent figures, one sounding a bugle, back-action lock with external mainspring and full cock position only, held in the Spanish fashion, and followed by the safety position, figured walnut full stock (minor bruising), fluted fore-end, indented iron trigger-guard, wooden patch-box cover, horn butt-plate inscribed 'No. 41' and with iron button, white and dark horn ramrod-pipes and fore-end cap, set trigger, iron sling swivels, and original ramrod with white and dark horn tip, the underside of the butt with armoury number 'SG 193' in white paint, and a branded Saxon(?) coat-of-arms with the initials 'AHS'(?)
29in. (73.7cm.) barrel

出版

J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. II, p. 118

展覽

The Game Fair, Longleat House, 1962

注意事項

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

拍品專文

Michael Gull was master in 1647 and died in 1679. He specialised in breech-loaders and made the ivory-stocked wheel-lock rifle for the Emperor Leopold I which is preserved in the Vienna Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer (inv. no. D239)
A very similar rifle was sold from the W. Keith Neal Collection in these Rooms, 8 November 1995, lot 76, and another, by Franz Jeiadtel of Vienna in the Tøjhusmuseet, Copenhagen (inv. no. B. 570), is illustrated in Howard L. Blackmore, Guns and Rifles of the World, nos. 412-3
See J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. II, p. 118; Hans Schedelmann, Die Wiener Büchsenmacher und Büchsenschäfter, pp. 8 and 9, plates 7, 11, 57, 58 and 60, and Die Großen Büchsenmacher, pp. 138-141, plates 224-227