Rare paire de pistolets à rouet par Félix... - Lot 151 - Pierre Bergé & Associés

Rare paire de pistolets à rouet par Félix Werder, Zurich vers 1640-50. A rare pair of Swiss wheel-lock pistols by Felix Werder, Zurich circa 1640-50, With octagonal gilt-brass alloy barrels, the tangs struck with differing small marks, gilt-brass alloy lockplates with sharply pointed bevelled tails, external wheels each retained by a small gilt-brass moulded bracket, sliding pancovers, and the dogs each with bevelled jaws, slender pearwood full stocks decorated with an arrangement of segmental mouldings in low relief and incised segmental lines, the pommels of characteristic design and fitted with gilt-brass grotesque mask caps cast in high relief, bevelled gilt-brass triggerguards, the ramrod-pipes and fore-end caps also of gilt-brass, and with horntipped wooden ramrods stained in imitation of tiger maple. L.: 49.5 cm - L. barrel: 30.5 cm. Provenance: William Goodwin Renwick, Sotheby & Co, part IX, 18th March 1975, lot 54 (sold £ 21,000). Felix Werder (1591-1673) was established in Zurich and was a member of the Zurich Goldsmiths' Guild; he became a master craftsman of the guild in 1616. His earliest recorded firearm is a pistol dated 1630, now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no. 10.42). Felix Werder is credited with the invention of a very strong copper/brass alloy which he used for casting barrels. He claimed that by adding a secret ingredient the resulting alloy would be sufficiently strong to take double the charge of a conventional iron barrel and yet remain half the weight of iron. He called his alloy "orichalcum" and in 1662 Werder had offered to sell it to The Royal Society in London. Modern analyses have however established that Werder's metal had none of the magic ingredients he claimed, it is an ordinary copper alloy with lead added. More than the alleged qualities of his metal it is believed that Felix Werder's true invention was his technique of cold hammering the alloy to produce safe barrels of much thinner brass than was