CIRCA 1630-40

Details

A FINE GERMAN WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOL
circa 1630-40
With octagonal barrel slightly swamped towards the muzzle and struck with barrelsmith's mark of Martin Gummi (Neue Støckel 451), plain flat lock, external wheel retained by a gilt-bronze bracket cast in relief as a winged mermaid, the pan-cover release and the dog-spring bridle also of gilt-bronze and cast as putti heads, fruitwood full stock veneered in figured palissander, inlaid with a comprehensive segmental design of narrow strips of contrasting white horn engraved with a variety of border ornaments all heightened in black stain, inlaid with a pair of plaques about the barrel tang each engraved with a swan, gilt-bronze oval pommel-cap finely cast in low relief, decorated around the sides with cartouches of fruit framing the figures of Venus and Cupid, and on the base with an elaborate trophy of contemporary arms centering on Minerva's Medusa mask shield, iron trigger-guard, the fore-end with a pair of engraved slotted gilt-brass bands fitted over the ramrod-pipes, and both the latter and the fore-end cap of white horn engraved with blackened foliage (small pieces of inlay and the ramrod each replaced).
22¾in (57.8cm)

Provenance

Anonymous sale, Georges Guillaumot, Lyon, 30 April 1985, Lot 20

Literature

Alaric and Etienne, Un luxueux pistolet à rouet bavarois du XVIIeme siècle, G.d.A. No. 310, May 2000.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

An identical pistol, almost certainly the pair, is in the Narodni Museum, Prague (Inv.C.H2-370). See Evzenie Snajdrová,Palné zbranê ze sbirky Narodniho muzea, Prague, 1998, Cat.No. 25 (the maker's mark incorrectly given as Heer (Støckel) 479).

Pistols stocked and mounted in this distinctive style exist bearing a variety of South German maker's marks and are represented in several institutional collections. One such pair is in the Wallace Collection (A 1157/8) and a single pistol is in the Hallwyl museum, Stockholm (Ä 19); these two examples are each struck with Nuremberg mark and with maker's mark, 'CB' above a heart.

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