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Celebrated Highly Ornamented Documented, Chiseled, Engraved, Gilt and Carved Miquelet Fernando Olave Sporting Gun
LOT 318
NSN, 15 gauge, 37 inch part octagon bbl., blue/gold/bright finish, relief carved walnut stock. This exceptional gun is described in detail in W. Keith Neal’s “Spanish Guns and Pistols”, pp. 23-24: “There is an exceptional gun made by Fernando Olave of Placentia, a contemporary of Bustindui and famed for his barrels, which is equal to the best work turned out in Madrid. This gun is in
the Madrid style and was made about the year 1805. The mounts are of steel deeply chiseled in the style and quality equal to the best work done in France
or Italy one hundred years earlier. The barrel is richly inlaid with gold, part of the breech being entirely covered with gold. The decoration on the barrel shows doves carrying the olive branch surmounted with the rising sun and scrolls and arabesques. The walnut stock is carved with vines and tendrils in the very finest manner. In the butt is a spring cover which when opened discloses the steel box. Inside this box is a combination tool which performs the function of turnscrew, touch-hole picker, strike-a-light, scourer for the face of the pan-cover and hammer for trimming a flint. In addition there is a detachable worm which fits the ramrod for withdrawing a load. This set of implements is made in the same fine quality as the rest of the gun. The gun is signed on the barrel with the marks of the maker, his name and a rampant lion. On the lock is his name in full in gold and again in full on the trigger-guard. This gun is the last word in fine production and compares with the best work of Boutet and of the finest artists to be found anywhere in Europe.”While the gun is not illustrated, Olave’s maker’s marks are shown on p. 100 of Neal’s book. Whether Norman R. Blank already owned this superb gun when W. Keith Neal described it in 1955 or subsequently obtained
it, possibly from or via Neal, is unclear. The barrel of another gun with similar decoration by Olave is shown in Frederick Wilkinson, “Antique Arms and
Armor”, p. 33.
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