SIGNED HÜSEYIN GIRIDI KANDIREVI, OTTOMAN GREECE OR TURKEY, DATED AH 1273 / 1856-7 AD

Details

A PAIR OF OTTOMAN MIQUELET LOCK PISTOLS
SIGNED HÜSEYIN GIRIDI KANDIREVI, OTTOMAN GREECE OR TURKEY, DATED AH 1273 / 1856-7 AD
The watered steel barrel inlaid with stylised floral motifs and a cartouche containing a Turkish inscription in gold, the lock inlaid with bird and floral motifs and a roundel containing maker’s signature, the dark wooden stock extensively inlaid with fine silver vase-and-flower motif, with chased silver-gilt mounts, with silver-gilt ramrod and flint
18 ½in. (47cm.) long

Provenance

By repute, Dutch Private Collection
Collection of Howard Ricketts, 1998

Engraved

On both barrels, a couplet, karıncalar budun çekmiş çekirgeni[n] süleymane / nemiz vardır size layık kabul eylen fakirane, ‘the ants brought Solomon a locust’s leg / accept from us humble ones whatever is worthy of You.’
On both barrels, between the couplet, sahib üsküdarli süleyman çeviş, ‘the owner is Üsküdarli Süleyman Çeviş (i.e., Çavuş)’
On both stocks, ‘amal-i hüseyin giridi kandiyevi sene 1273, ‘the work of Hüseyin Giridi Kandirevi, the year AH 1273/ 1856-7 AD’
On both lockplates, ‘amal-i hüseyin kandiyevi, ‘the work of Hüseyin Kandirevi’

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

The Turkish couplet inlaid on the watered steel barrel is recorded in Evliya Çelebi’s Seyahatname (Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname I, Istanbul: Üçdal Neşriyat, 1976, p.108). Çelebi relates that four porphyry columns were brought from Egypt to Istanbul for the construction of the Süleymaniye Mosque by a ‘Captain Ant’ (karınca kaptan). Captain Ant spoke the couplet to Sultan Süleyman and was rewarded with the banner (sanjak) of Yılanlı Island. The owner of the pair of pistols, Üsküdarli Süleyman Çeviş (‘Sgt. Solomon of Scutari’) likely chose the couplet because his name was, like the sultan, Süleyman.The gunsmith is not otherwise known, but his patronymics, Giridi and Kandirevi, mean ‘Cretan’ and ‘from Kandiya (i.e. Chania)’ respectively. His work resembles that of the gunsmith Yücel ‘Ali, who signed the barrels of a pair of pistols dated AH 1240⁄1824-5 AD in the Wallace Collection, London (OA2153 and OA2154; Thom Richardson and Paula Turner (eds.), The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Arms and Armour from Asia, Africa and the Ottoman World, London, 2026, p.405), although the stock’s silver inlay is notably finer on the present pair of pistols.

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