Wheel-lock carbine
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Wheel-lock carbine. Smooth-bore barrel with short strap and prominent applied brass muzzle-ring. Three bands down barrel chiselled in bas-relief with interlaced strapwork, blued against a roughened gilt ground. Back section counterfeit-damascened in gold with strapwork; further counterfeit-damascening and gilding along barrel.
Lock has flat wheel-cover pierced and chiselled to represent two dolphins. Cock chiselled with acanthus leaves. The plate is chiselled with strapwork similar to that on the barrel against engraved foliage.
Stock with cheekpiece, of brown wood veneered with ebony. Main surfaces, including the back of the butt and the butt-trap cover inlaid in engraved mother-of-pearl with grotesques, trees, scrollwork, buildings, hunting animals, fruit and flowers, ball-flowers, birds, and figures in the c. 1600 costume. The cheekpiece is inlaid with a scene showing a fight between two mounted warriors in pseudo-Classical armour holding curved swords.
Curved gilt trigger and large trigger-guard, rounded at the front and angular at the rear. The guard is decorated with strapwork as with the lock. Wooden ramrod, the staghorn tip engraved with quatrefoil flowers and scrollwork.
The stock of this carbine, a lighter gun with a shorter barrel, is a fine example of the work of the Nuremberg stockmaker known as the 'Master of the Castles' (see also acc. no. 5187). The rest of the gun was made in the 19th century to fit the stock by a maker not totally familiar with guns from this period. The lock is particularly weak in quality and would not be practical in the field. In contrast, the wear on the stock indicates it was a well-used hunting weapon in a former life.
Phillippa Plock, 2016
Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)
874 (length); 612 (barrel); 13 (calibre); 610 (ramrod)
Provenance
- Acquired by either Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (b.1839, d.1898) or Alice de Rothschild (b.1847, d.1922); inherited by her great-nephew James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); bequeathed to Waddesdon (National Trust) in 1957.
Collection
- Waddesdon (National Trust)
- Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957
Bibliography
- Claude Blair, Anthony Blunt; The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: Arms, Armour and Base-Metalwork; Fribourg; Office du Livre; 1974; pp. 268-70, cat. no. 104, ill.