Très rare paire de pistolets d'arçon à rouet... - Lot 150 - Pierre Bergé & Associés

Très rare paire de pistolets d'arçon à rouet attribuée au Meister der Tierkopfranke (le maître des volutes à têtes d'animaux), Autriche - Vienne vers 1640-50. A very rare pair of German wheel-lock holster pistols attributed to the Meister der Tierkopfranke (The Master of the Animal-Head Scrolls), circa 1640-50, with octagonal barrels decorated with silvered geometric bands of leaf ornament over the breeches, the muzzles and at the median, lightly damascened with panels of silver scrollwork over their full length, the designs formalised and involving flowerheads along the top flats, all on a lightly incised blued ground, the tangs and lock plates en suite, with flat locks terminating in a minute trefoil at the rear, each fitted with external wheel retained by a moulded iron bracket, sliding pan covers, the dogs each with bevelled fluted arm, and pierced shaped iron bridles, fruitwood full stocks retaining traces of staining in imitation of ebony, with carved fluted fore-ends, the undersides below the breech carved with a simple foliate motif ahead of a pair of chip-carved panels below the wheel, each carved with a large panel of flowering tendrils centering on an expanded rose head about the barrel-tang, the butts each incised with the early inventory number 19, carved with a small triangular panel of foliage on both sides, carved with a further large panel opposite the locks, this filled with scrolling foliage inhabited by a neo-heraldic rampant lion and the rearward scroll terminating in a dog's head, the carved scrollwork designs all on a contrasting punched matted ground and bordered by incised lines enhanced with minute punched trefoils, iron trigger-guards and domed faceted pommel-caps blued and damascened en suite with the barrels and locks, plain iron ramrod-pipes, one with an iron band below the muzzle, and each retaining its original ramrod. L.: 55.8 cm - L. barrels: 35 cm. This important pair of wheel-lock pistols are apparently unrecorded and are only the