EARLY 18TH CENTURY, ALMOST CERTAINLY BY JOHANN PETER BOSLER, DARMSTADT

Details

A Fine 34-Bore German 'Wheel-Lock' Sporting Air Rifle
Early 18th Century, almost certainly by Johann Peter Bosler, Darmstadt
With swamped octagonal sighted barrel cut with seven grooves and with silver fore-sight, the rear of the breech cut with a band of beadwork between engraved lines, plain tang, rounded lock with domed integral wheel-cover, dome-headed pan-cover release button, and chiselled details, the blued parts retaining their original colour, moulded figured walnut full stock carved in relief with stylised foliage behind the barrel tang and on the underside of the fore-stock, cheek-piece, shaped iron mounts including flat side-plate engraved with a winged monster, carved patch-box cover, white staghorn side-nail washers, iron baluster ramrod-pipes and sling mounts, set trigger, white staghorn fore-end cap, and orignal horn-tipped ramrod, the butt-plate engraved 'No. 17' and with engraved sprung hinged cover for the aperture for the pump, in very fine virtually unused condition throughout with the original burnished finish on the uncoloured iron parts
31½in. (80cm.) barrel (2)

Exhibited

The Game Fair, Longleat House, 1962
The Game Fair, Shuttleworth Old Warden Park, 27-29 July 2001

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

Probably made for Landgrave Ludwig VIII, for whom Johann Peter Bosler and his son Friedrich Jakob worked in succession as court gunmakers in Darmstadt, specialising in air weapons
Ludwig VIII was a dedicated exponant of air rifles (see footnote to the preceding lot), many of which remain at Kranichstein, including a signed example almost identical to the present rifle illustrated in Arne Hoff, Airguns and Other Pneumatic Weapons, plate 56
Two Bosler air rifles, also from Kranichstein, were sold from the W. Keith Neal Collection in these Rooms, 9 November 2000, lots 129 and 130
Sold with Keith Neal's handwritten instructions (dated 1977) for using the rifle (see illustration above), which was often put to use on Peter Hawker's iron target (see introduction)

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