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These pistols belong to an unusual garniture comprising of at least three revolving
firearms made for a member of the imperial family during the reign of Empress Catherine
II (Catherine the Great, rule 1762-1796), for which a matching six-shot fowling piece is still
in the former imperial armory in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (inv. no.
Z.O.513350). Fine firearms from Tula are exceptionally rare outside Russia.” Many details on
the various guns point to a shared genesis. The current gun’s cock, for example, is sculpted
and decorated nearly identically to examples in the Hermitage Museum and the Tula
revolvers exhibited by the Met.
While likely made in Russia, this revolving sporting gun is believed to have been owned by
the dukes (later kings) of Wurttemberg up through Duke Carl Alexander (d. 1964). Norman
R. Blank acquired the gun from a private collection in Europe via W. Keith Neal in June 1960
as shown by the included Western Union Telegram. The back of an old photo of this gun
from Blank’s archives (not included) is stamped with the arms of the Altshausen branch of
the Wurttemberg family who inherited the dukedom after the death of King Wilhelm II in
1921. King Frederick I of Wurttemberg became the Duke of Wurttemberg on December 23,
1797, and became Elector of Wurttemberg on February 25, 1803, and King of Wurttemberg
on January 1, 1806. The lavish gun may have been a gift from his brother-in-law Tsar Paul
I and his sister Tsarina Maria Feodorovna. Maria became Paul’s second wife in 1776 during
the reign of Catherine the Great. The gun is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity for
Norman Blank from F. Theodore Dexter.
This incredibly rare revolving carbine features a beautifully patterned Damascus octagon
to round barrel with a smooth bore, brass muzzle band, blade front sight, turned girdles at
the transition point and a sculpted sighting flat with a screw affixed notch rear sight.