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LOT 270
Extensively Chiseled Flintlock Sporting Gun with Highly Figured Stock
- NSN, 16 gauge, 48 1/4 inch round bbl., bright finish, rootwood stock. This
ornate flintlock sporting gun has no identifying maker’s marks but has clear
influences from the designs published by Claude Simonin who inspired much
of European firearms ornamentation in the period. It came from the famous
collection of the Dukes of Saxe-Weimar at Schloss Ettersburg. In the catalog
“Grossherzoglich sächsische Gewehrsammlung, Schloss Ettersburg” from
Galerie Fischer in 1927, Lot 67 notes the decoration and unusual dual vent
holes and indicates the gun was from “Italy about 1680” and “must have been
considered a great treasure, the wood for the stock alone having been worth
a fortune at that time.
LOT 271
Extraordinary Chiseled, Engraved, and Carved Flintlock
Sporting Gun Dated 1689 by Royal Gunmaker Bertrand
Piraube - NSN, 16 gauge, 45 3/4 inch round bbl., bright finish,
walnut stock. This incredibly deluxe sporting gun was crafted by
French gunmaker Bertrand Piraube who is noted as “the leading
gunmaker in France during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715)”
by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Piraube was granted
lodgings in the Louvre as noted in the markings on the gun and
made guns for the French court as well as the nobility across
Europe. The long smoothbore barrel has a blade front sight
accented by fine engraving, a long sighting flat signed “PIRAVBE
AVX GALLERIES A PARIS 1689”, scrollwork, masks and martial trophies on the
breech; and martial trophies and a beaded border on the tang.
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