An Exceptional Wheel-Lock

Sporting Carbine

c. 1590 – 1600

Southern Germany, Augsburg. Steel, gold, brass, fruitwood, horn. 90.3cm / 35.5 in

PROVENANCE

F. Engel-Gros collection, Geneva Private collection, Switzerland

LITERATURE

Paul Ganz, L’Oeuvre d’un Amateur d’Art La Collection de Monsieur F. Engel-Gros, 2 vols. cat. no. 44, ill. pl. 127d, Geneva and Paris 1925

EXHIBITED

L’Exposition Nationale Suisse de Genève, 1896

This carbine is preserved in superb and untouched condition; as such it is perhaps unused. The second barrel is fired by a second mechanism carried on a single lockplate, the two mechanisms being engaged by a single trigger: this both reduced the weight and maintained the ease of handling. Unlike the best-quality single-trigger game shotguns of modern times, however, the historical owner of this carbine would have needed to cock each of the two mechanisms in succession. Nonetheless, the advantage of a second shot, not only pre-loaded in the second barrel but with the second mechanism already primed and spanned (a laborious and as yet unavoidable process in wheel-lock firearms), this would be considered a clever and significant improvement at the end of the 16th century.

The fulsome extent to which the barrels in this instance have been decorated with etched designs and bands of fire-gilding confirms the status of this carbine as a luxury weapon, but one as much intended for defence as for the hunt. The etched designs are typically from the South German design repertoire and the high quality of the overall finish underscores the origin of the carbine, which is indicated by the control mark of the city of Augsburg. Of particular interest is the trace of foliate designs which very unusually have been lightly applied simply by a blued finish. Similarly, the rare placing of the safety-catch away from the lockplate, or from the stock opposite it, has very logically put the device in convenient reach of the user.

The stock is again very much in the South German fashion, the engraved white staghorn inlay contrasting beautifully with the warm colour of the fruitwood. The engraved details themselves are little changed over the previous thirty years, retaining the same German Late Renaissance subjects and characteristics that are found on furniture, games boards and luxurious inlaid boxes of the period.

The shape of the butt reveals the contemporary influence of Italian fashion in South German gunmaking. Specifically and most famously, the same slender high-combed form exists in the fruitwood stocks of the single-barrelled wheel-lock carbines which were made for the bodyguard troops of Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. Made with undecorated barrels and locks in several series over the period 1590-1600, the von Raitenau carbines variously bear the marks of Augsburg, Suhl and of several different South German and Salzburg gunmakers, but they have in common the form of stock shared by the present carbine, similarly enriched with a related style of horn inlay. For comparison an example of the von Raitenau type is in the former imperial arms collection in Vienna (A808).

A Deluxe-Quality Hunting-Sword from the Hunting Wardrobe of a member of the Palatine Branch of the Royal House of Wittelsbach, with close association to Her Serene Highness the Electress Palatine, Elizabeth Auguste von Sulzbach, later Electress of Bavaria c. 1742 – 80

Germany, Rhineland-Palatinate. Steel, gold, silver, giltbrass, silver-plated brass, polychrome pigments, agate, wood and leather.

61 cm / 24 in

PROVENANCE

Possibly included in the French booty of 1793 from Schloss Oggersheim, seat of Her Serene Highness Elizabeth Auguste, Electress of Bavaria Private collection, Austria

This sword shows the figure of an angel bearing an allegorical flaming heart and standing above the motto ‘AMORIS VINCULA CASTA’ (‘Chains of pure love’). A gilt panel inscribed in Fraktur script beneath, contains a flowery proclamation of the love match of Elizabeth Auguste von Sulzbach and her princely husband, Carl Theodore von Sulzbach. The blade etched and gilt in a complementary style, includes the further allegory of an angelic figure feeding roses to a lion, the motto ‘AMOUR TRIOMPHE DE TOUT’ (‘Love conquers all’) beneath, near a painted bust portrait miniature of a youthful Elizabeth Auguste recessed within a silver frame.

A French Silver-Mounted Flintlock

Fowling-Piece by Jean Joseph Charrière, ‘Place du Lovure (sic) à Paris’

Paris silver marks for 1742

France, Paris. Steel, gold, silver, walnut wood. 149 cm / 58.7 in

Provenance

The Sobieski Stuart brothers, authors of Vestiarum Scoticum and self-proclaimed grandsons of Charles Edward Stuart, aka ‘The Young Pretender’ and ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’. The gun first mentioned in 1839, in a letter written by Charles Hay Alan, the younger of the two brothers. This manuscript letter (now separated from the gun) concerned a group of items including this gun, all said to have belonged to Charles Edward Stuart. Among the other items in this group was an officer’s Scottish regimental mitre cap of circa 174560, subsequently included in Christie’s Jacobite sale, 12 June 1996. A further manuscript letter was written in 1852, by one R.W. Billings, in reference to the gun (now separated also), together with the same group of alleged Stuart items.

Christie’s London, 27 March 1996, ‘The Property of a Lady’, lot 266

Jean-Joseph Charrière was the son of the Paris gunmaker Joseph Charrière, the latter working in the rue du Chantre and having held the royal appointment ‘Arquebusier du Roi’. Jean-Joseph married in 1742 and was recorded in Paris as a master gunmaker on 8th April 1744, working at the Place du Louvre. He was elected to the Paris gunmakers’ guild in October 1754 until October 1756, by a majority of 16 votes, and elected again in 1774.

A chiselled and gilt iron side-plate almost identical to that mounted on the present gun is on a Paris fowling gun by Le Faure and Molliere, circa 1750, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1990.114.1).