A 12 BORE GERMAN WHEEL-LOCK SPORTING RIFLE BY HANNS ROHR IN BAYREUTS (SIC), DATED 1661 with octagonal swamped sighted barrel rifled with a series of slender grooves and engraved with a garland around the muzzle face, engraved with scrolling foliage and large expanded flowerheads over the breech and muzzle, the former signed and dated ahead of the back-sight, engraved tang, flat lock retained by two side nails, fitted with external wheel retained by a pierced openwork gilt-brass bracket decorated with a symmetrical arrangement of two sphinxes, fitted with sliding pan-cover with button release, finely engraved dog decorated with two monsterheads, fitted with gilt-brass bridle formed as a cherubic mask, and with an additional gilt-brass dragon, double set trigger, blackened full stock lightly carved behind the rear ramrod pipe, covered over much of its surface with large engraved silver plaques depicting scenes from the chase, including a fox with a bird-of-prey, a hunter and hound in pursuit of a boar on each side of the fore-end, a large prowling bear opposite the lock and a mounted nobleman beneath, the butt applied with further plaques including, on the left, a doe and stag in a woodland landscape on the cheek-piece and, on the right, with patchbox with sliding cover applied with a further silver plaque of a hunter in contemporary dress, pierced iron trigger-guard shaped for the fingers, silver butt-plate engraved with the owner's coat-of-arms and numbered '9', and silver fore-end cap (later ramrod and ramrod-pipe, some silver plaques restored), the cheek-piece applied with an early red wax gewehrkammer seal 83.0 cm; 32 3/4 in barrel Hans Ruehrer is recorded active in Bayreuth, Bayern, circa 1658.