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DRESDEN, DATED 1593
Details
A FINE AND RARE 25-BORE SAXON WHEEL-LOCK SUPERIMPOSED-LOAD RIFLE
Dresden, dated 1593
With four-stage sighted barrel rifled with eight grooves, punched with bands of beadwork, and cut with triangular panels, the grooved octagonal breech with traces of the maker's initials 'ZH' (for Zacharias Herold) and struck twice with his silver-lined maker's mark (Neue Støckel 516), short grooved tang, double lock struck on the plate with the mark of Christoph Dressler (Neue Støckel 259), domed gilt-brass wheel-covers engraved with differing designs of fruit, birds, and foliage, sliding pan-covers each with scallop-shaped release-button, swivelling safety-catch with engraved gilt-brass bridle (rear top jaw and screw missing), full stock (minor old repairs) inlaid with staghorn lines enclosing finely engraved horn plaques decorated with monsters, animals, an owl and a horse each within an elaborate cartouche, a portrait bust of a nobleman in contemporary costume, and, on the cheek-piece, with a gunner firing his cannon at a walled city, hinged finely etched iron butt-plate opening to reveal cavities for three cartridges and to allow removal of the engraved patch-box cover, the butt-plate, its release-button, and the trigger-guard each with applied gilt-brass lion-mask, engraved horn fore-end cap, and horn-tipped wooden ramrod with worm
33½in. (85.1cm.) barrel
Dresden, dated 1593
With four-stage sighted barrel rifled with eight grooves, punched with bands of beadwork, and cut with triangular panels, the grooved octagonal breech with traces of the maker's initials 'ZH' (for Zacharias Herold) and struck twice with his silver-lined maker's mark (Neue Støckel 516), short grooved tang, double lock struck on the plate with the mark of Christoph Dressler (Neue Støckel 259), domed gilt-brass wheel-covers engraved with differing designs of fruit, birds, and foliage, sliding pan-covers each with scallop-shaped release-button, swivelling safety-catch with engraved gilt-brass bridle (rear top jaw and screw missing), full stock (minor old repairs) inlaid with staghorn lines enclosing finely engraved horn plaques decorated with monsters, animals, an owl and a horse each within an elaborate cartouche, a portrait bust of a nobleman in contemporary costume, and, on the cheek-piece, with a gunner firing his cannon at a walled city, hinged finely etched iron butt-plate opening to reveal cavities for three cartridges and to allow removal of the engraved patch-box cover, the butt-plate, its release-button, and the trigger-guard each with applied gilt-brass lion-mask, engraved horn fore-end cap, and horn-tipped wooden ramrod with worm
33½in. (85.1cm.) barrel
Provenance
W.G. Renwick Collection, Part II, Sotheby & Co., London, 21 November 1972, lot 41 (£6,600); H.L. Visser Collection, Part I, Sotheby & Co., London, 3 July 1990, lot 19 (£27,500 including premium)
Exhibited
Loan exhibition of European Arms and Armor, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 3 August-27 September 1931, cat. no. 246