Belle et imposante arquebuse combinée à mèche... - Lot 148 - Pierre Bergé & Associés

Belle et imposante arquebuse combinée à mèche et à rouet, Allemagne vers 1610-20. A fine massive German combined wheel-lock and matchlock musket, circa 1610-20. With blued heavy barrel formed in two stages with chiselled bands of leaf ornament over the breech and at the median, moulded bulbous muzzle, the breech section cut with three long fluted panels, struck twice with a mark, P, together with two further marks on the underside, and the upper breech flat struck with the letters P L, an inverted crowned anchor mark between (Neue Støckel 4309 and 4852), large plain lock fitted with external wheel cut with a concentric fluted pattern and retained by a bevelled ring, sliding pan-cover, the dog engraved with scrollwork, and the match-holder formed as a monster's head and engaging an external spring with pivoted safety-catch, wooden full stock profusely inlaid with a close-set pattern of scrolling brass wire spiralling on ball-flowers and conventional flowerheads, some of green stained horn and others of mother-of-pearl, enclosing a series of engraved brass plaques over its entire length, including a pair of monsters flanking the figure of Leda and the Swan opposite the lock, a pair of elaborate human grotesques about the barrel tang, the butt inlaid on both sides with brass plaques engraved with trophies-of-war and with further representations of the figure of Leda, all on a densely packed ground of small brass nails, and all arranged within lines of brass and horn, with iron trigger-guard, brass butt-plate, engraved brass ramrod-pipe, engraved brass fore-end cap, and horn-tipped ramrod, probably the original. L.: 164 cm - L. barrel: 126.8 cm. Provenance: Fürst Thun-Hohenstein gunroom at castle Tetschen, Dorotheum, Wien, October 24, 1933, lot 51 illustrated. William Randolph Hearst, St. Donat's castle, South Wales, Sotheby & Co., March 17, 1953, lot 25 (Sold £65) illustrated. Galerie Fischer, Luzern, June 17, 1964, lot 214 illustrated (Sold CHF 8,200). William Goodwin