A .55 VIENNESE WHEEL-LOCK SPORTING RIFLE

BY MICHAEL GULL, THIRD QUARTER OF THE 17TH CENTURY

Details

A .55 VIENNESE WHEEL-LOCK SPORTING RIFLE
By Michael Gull, third quarter of the 17th Century
With swamped octagonal barrel (sights missing) rifled with eight grooves and stamped with maker's signature and brass-lined maker's mark at the breech (Neue Støckel 447), plain flat lock with integral wheel-cover pierced and engraved with two addorsed winged monsters, the cock engraved with two marine monsters, walnut full stock sparsely inlaid with engraved staghorn plaques including a bear in an oval on the cheek-piece, fluted fore-end with waved upper edge, indented iron trigger-guard, horn butt-plate with iron button, later patch-box cover, engraved staghorn fore-end cap and forward ramrod-pipe, set trigger, and later ramrod
33 1/8in. barrel

Lot Essay

Michael Gull was master in Vienna in 1647, and died in 1679. He specialised in breech-loaders and made the ivory-stocked wheel-lock rifle for the Emperor Leopold I, preserved in the Vienna Hofjagd- und Leibrüstkammer (inv. no. D 239)

See John 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

More from The Russell B. Aitken Collection of Silver Trophies, Vintage

View All