SIGNED C.P. HOCH, DATED 1589
Details
A Very Rare 15-Bore German Snap Matchlock Target Rifle
Signed C.P. Hoch, dated 1589
With swamped octagonal barrel changing planes at the muzzle and cut with alternating broad and narrow grooves, brass fore-sight, and iron peep-sight at the rear with pierced side-pieces, the breech with stamped signature and date, pan with hand-operated swivelling cover, plain tang, slender flat lock cocked by a cord passing through a hole towards the rear of the plate and with slender annular-headed match-holder decorated with baluster turns, full stock of characteristic form inlaid with engraved mother-of-pearl plaques and with fluted fore-end without provision for a ramrod, short butt with iron button, indented for the fingers of the right hand and carved in relief at the rear with a band of running foliage, the top flat inlaid with an oblong white staghorn panel engraved with foliage and the inscription 'C.P. Hoch I.H.S.', straight iron trigger without guard, and engraved horn fore-end cap
34 1/16in. (86.4cm.) barrel
This is a plain version of the usually more ornate matchlock target rifles of this distinct type, about twenty in number, and mostly dated in the 1580s and 1590s. More opulent examples, some made in Nuremberg, are found in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (W. 1446, 1447), the Wallace Collection, London (A 1072), the Musée de l'Armée, Paris (M.9, M.24), Windsor Castle (L 351), and the Royal Armouries (XII.10). Another was formerly in the Clay P. Bedford Collection (Williamsburg Exhibition, No. 45)
Der Neue Støckel lists Christoph Paulus Hoch
Signed C.P. Hoch, dated 1589
With swamped octagonal barrel changing planes at the muzzle and cut with alternating broad and narrow grooves, brass fore-sight, and iron peep-sight at the rear with pierced side-pieces, the breech with stamped signature and date, pan with hand-operated swivelling cover, plain tang, slender flat lock cocked by a cord passing through a hole towards the rear of the plate and with slender annular-headed match-holder decorated with baluster turns, full stock of characteristic form inlaid with engraved mother-of-pearl plaques and with fluted fore-end without provision for a ramrod, short butt with iron button, indented for the fingers of the right hand and carved in relief at the rear with a band of running foliage, the top flat inlaid with an oblong white staghorn panel engraved with foliage and the inscription 'C.P. Hoch I.H.S.', straight iron trigger without guard, and engraved horn fore-end cap
34 1/16in. (86.4cm.) barrel
This is a plain version of the usually more ornate matchlock target rifles of this distinct type, about twenty in number, and mostly dated in the 1580s and 1590s. More opulent examples, some made in Nuremberg, are found in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (W. 1446, 1447), the Wallace Collection, London (A 1072), the Musée de l'Armée, Paris (M.9, M.24), Windsor Castle (L 351), and the Royal Armouries (XII.10). Another was formerly in the Clay P. Bedford Collection (Williamsburg Exhibition, No. 45)
Der Neue Støckel lists Christoph Paulus Hoch