FOR AN OFFICER OF THE SAXON ELECTORAL TRABANTENLEIB-GARDE OF CHRISTIAN I (1586-91) OR CHRISTIAN II (1591-1611), LATE 16TH CENTURY

from the same series, with swamped barrels formed in three stages, the medians chiselled with a series of elongated triangular panels and domed recesses, octagonal breeches with a slender beadwork band at each end and struck with the barrelsmith’s mark, a fleur-de-lys (Neue Støckel 5427), flat locks retained by two side nails, each fitted with external wheel with finely engraved domed gilt copper alloy cover decorated with foliage, engraved pan with sliding cover with button release, engraved dog, delicately filed dog-spring, bridle and safety-catch, blackened full stocks finely stamped in imitation of natural staghorn (one with a small chip beneath the dog spring, (minor dents), inlaid with engraved staghorn panels comprising marine monsters over the fore-end, the undersides with a further engraved staghorn panel decorated with geometric ornament and foliage, one with further monsters opposite the lock and the other with a pair of hippocampi, foliate panels about the tangs, each signed by the unidentified stockmaker ‘IP’ above a shield charged with a saltire, the rear portion of the grips enclosed by an etched silver coronet-shaped collar decorated with scrolling foliage, near spherical pommels en suite with the stocks, each set with a stellate panel charged in the centre with the arms of Saxony enclosed within a chased frame of laurel foliage, iron trigger-guards engraved with a line, engraved staghorn ramrod-pipes and fore-end caps (one chipped and incomplete), one with its associated staghorn-tipped wooden ramrod (the other replaced), and the underside of the stocks incised with early inventory numbers ‘12’ and ‘15’ respectively, 39.0 cm barrels (2)

Provenance

The Saxon Electoral Armouries, Dresden

William Goodwin Renwick, sold Sotheby & Co., 17^th December 1974, lot 72

Peter Tillou

Eric Bratli, circa 1980

Robert Brooker Collection inv. nos. 553 & 554

Literature

R.E. Brooker & H. Lehner, 'The Military Pistols of Saxony' in ASAC Bulletin No. 31, 1975, pp. 108-110, fig. 6.

This belongs to a distinguished sub-group of wheel-lock ‘puffers’, almost certainly intended for high ranking officers of the Trabanten Guard. Another pistol from this series, numbered ‘10’ beneath the fore-end, and formerly in the collection of David L. Back, was sold Bonhams, Knightsbridge, 24th November 2010, lot 442. For a discussion of this group see Brooker 1975, op. cit.