antique arms, armour & militaria - Thomas Del Mar

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A VERY FINE AND RARE PAIR OF 22 BORE FRENCH
FLINTLOCK LONG HOLSTER PISTOLS BY PIRAUBE AUX
GALLERIES A PARIS, DATED 1697
with lightly swamped barrels fitted with silver fore-sights,
signed in full and dated on a long central panel engraved
with sprays of strapwork foliage at the muzzle end and
chiselled with a grotesque at the breech end, moulded
breeches chiselled with opposing classical warrior profile
busts beneath a canopy and a trophy-of-arms all within a
strapwork frame (areas of light wear), rectangular tangs
engraved with a stylized grotesque and border ornament,
stepped bevelled locks engraved with trophies on the tails,
engraved and chiselled faceted pans signed in full beneath,
the lock-plates and cocks engraved with strapwork foliage
and border ornament en suite with the muzzles, finely
chiselled steels decorated with a moustacheod
espagnolette mask on the outer face and the spurs formed
as grotesque monsters, highly figured walnut full stocks
carved in low relief with linear mouldings over the foreends
(one fore-end expertly repaired), scrolling tendrils
with monsterhead terminals behind the rear ramrod-pipes
and on either side of the barrel tangs, the butts inlaid in
silver wire with scrolls over the spines and with a pattern of
wavy lines about the barrel tangs, the side-plates and the
pommel spurs, chiselled steel mounts comprising solid
side-plates decorated with a framework of foliage
incorporating an oval central panel and with a pierced
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design of foliage on the tails, moulded trigger-guards
engraved en suite with the locks and with acanthus finials,
spurred pommels engraved with elaborate trophies-of-arms
carrying differing portrait medallions on each side, the caps
finely chiselled with acanthus and a laurel frame enriched
with gold pellets enclosing a mounted classical warrior on
a punched ground, vacant escutcheons carried by a pair of
addorsed herms, and surmounted by a ducal coronet, a
pair of faceted ramrod-pipes (the mounts with areas of light
wear), and steel-tipped wooden ramrods, perhaps the
original
56cm; 22in
(2)
Provenance
Clay P. Bedford
Charles H. Moses, Ashtablula, Ohio 1966
Literature
Wallace B. Gusler and James D. Lavin, Decorated Firearms
1540-1870, from the Collection of Clay P. Bedford,
Williamsburg, 1977, pp.34-7
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