Rare paire de pistolets à silex à deux canons... - Lot 152 - Pierre Bergé & Associés

Rare paire de pistolets à silex à deux canons tournants et montures en ivoire, Maastricht vers 1680. A rare pair of Dutch flintlock wender pistols with ivory stocks, Maastricht, circa 1680. Each with turnover barrels formed in two stages, the breeches decorated with engraved and gilt game animals, birds, a snail, and a grotesque mask, the barrels released by a catch forward the trigger-guards, the breech tangs engraved with scrolls and a parrot, and the pan-plates with bevelled edges and each engraved with a bird-of-prey, with rounded locks with fluted borders, each engraved with scrollwork inhabited by human half-figures and the cocks each decorated with a serpent, carved moulded ivory butts, fluted ivory fore-end panels, and the pommels formed as Moors' heads carved in the round, each with moustache, inset ebony eyes, and a jewelled turban with a plume of ostrich feathers, plain iron mounts, moulded ramrod-pipes, and later ramrods. L.: 44 cm - L. barrels: 25.2 cm. Provenance: William Goodwin Renwick, Sotheby & Co, part VIII, 17th December 1974, lot 71 (sold £ 6,500). Herb Ratner collection. exhibited: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1931, n°331. Literature: ILGNER Emil, Maastrichter Elfenbeinpistolen, Zeitschrift für historishe Waffenkunde, 1931, Band 3, pp.210-214, ill. 15. HOFF Arne, Dutch Firearms, 1978, p. 213-214, ill.10. Firearms stocked in ivory are very rare. Ivory was a naturally precious material and its use lent an exotic flavour to a small number of firearms produced within the German-speaking sphere, the main centre of production being Maastricht. The popularity of the Maastricht school of ivory stocked firearms is related to the trade in ivory from the Dutch colonies in the Far East. The present pair of pistols is further linked with Dutch Far East interest by the style and technique used in the decoration of the barrel breeches; a direct parallel can be made with the ornament seen on Japanese gun barrels and domestic wares produced in the 17th