BY MICHAEL MCNAMARA, DUBLIN, CIRCA 1700

Details

An Exceptional Pair Of 20-Bore Irish Silver-Mounted Flintlock Holster Pistols
By Michael McNamara, Dublin, circa 1700
With sighted brass barrels in three stages divided by mouldings, plain iron tangs, signed rounded solid silver lock-plates (top jaws and screws replaced), moulded figured walnut full stocks (each with minor defects) with a raised apron at the barrel tang, full silver mounts including spurred pommels each with oval cap engraved with owner's coat-of-arms and coronet, oval silver escutcheons each engraved with owner's crest and coronet, silver trigger-plates and ramrod-pipes, and iron-capped ramrods, each with worm (one ramrod replaced), Dublin silver hallmarks, maker's mark of John Matthews
18½in. (47cm.) (2)

Provenance

(One Pistol) Frank E. Bivens, Jr., Los Angeles

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, pp. 350-351, plates 145 a, b, and colour plate XXIV

Exhibited

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

The arms are those of Fitzwilliam, of Merrion, Co. Dublin, either for the 4th Viscount, Thomas Fitzwilliam (d. 1704), or his son Richard, the 5th Viscount (d. 1734)

These pistols are highly unusual in being hallmarked on all the silver parts, with the sole exception of the forward ramrod-pipes
John Matthews is recorded as assaying silver between 1696 and 1709

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