with very long tapering slender barrel formed in two stages, the forward portion polygonal and the breech section octagonal, inlaid in engraved silver with scrolling foliage, a sun-in-splendour and a further mask over the breech and inscribed 'MFST' and 'MSC ' ahead, engraved tang, flat lock signed 'MMS' and finely chiselled with foliage and masks on the bridles, fitted with chiselled cock decorated with a mask on the top-jaw and steel en suite, trigger chiselled as a serpent, full stock encased in finely pierced and chiselled steel over the fore-end decorated with elaborate designs of foliage inhabited by naïve figures, rampant lions, serpents, further beasts and masks, the middle-section of wood carved with a matching design of foliage, slender flaring butt with a cylindrical comb all decorated en suite with the fore-end, long trigger-guard decorated with foliage and masks and open at the front, with no provision for a ramrod, and with large circular inventory tag 'C. P. Bedford 1366', 135.7 cm barrel

Provenance

E. A. Oxley, London, 1936

Clay P. Bedford, Arizona, (inv. no. 1366)

Stephen V. Grancsay

Literature

Arms and Armor, A Loan Exhibition from the Collection of Stephen V. Grancsay, with important contributions by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the John Woodman Higgins Armory, Worcester, Massachusetts, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 15th March - 14th June 1964, p. 80

Exhibited

Allentown, 1964 (see above)

The initials probably those of Matteo II Franzini, recorded in Sarezzo and Gardone Val Trompia circa 1650-97. This gun is a notably fine example of this distinctive group, a comparable example, signed 'M.F.S.' on the barrel, is preserved in the Armeria Reale, Turin. See Bertolotto et al 1982, p. 389, cat. no. 305.