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Lot 117*
A Fine Pair Of Liège 22-bore Flintlock Holster PistolsBy Gille (sic) Desellier, Early 18th Century
29 April 2010, 11:00 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £9,000 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistA Fine Pair Of Liège 22-bore Flintlock Holster Pistols
By Gille (sic) Desellier, Early 18th Century
By Gille (sic) Desellier, Early 18th Century
With slightly swamped barrels signed on the sighting flat and with faint inscription around the muzzle flat 'Heureux Sont Ceux Qui M'Echape', bronze blade fore-sight set within an engraved oval wreath, and tapering breech sections engraved with symmetrical strapwork and scrollwork enclosing acanthus foliage chiselled in relief and struck thrice with the maker's bronze-lined rectangular mark, a lion rampant (Neue Støckel 8241), the rear of each breech with a band of raised lobes in front of a reeded moulding, engraved and chiselled swelling humped tangs each grooved for sighting and retained from underneath, bevelled locks engraved with foliate scrolls and a monster-head on a punched ground and with a grotesque mask chiselled in relief on each tail, chiselled cocks and steels, faceted pans, moulded figured walnut full stocks carved in relief with acanthus foliage behind the rear ramrod-pipes and the raised aprons to the barrel tangs, and engraved and chiselled steel mounts, elaborately pierced side-plates, bevelled trigger-guards each with foliate finial, pierced escutcheons each surmounted by a coronet, spurred pommels each with chiselled grotesque mask cap, engraved trigger-plates, baluster ramrod-pipes of octagonal section, and iron-capped wooden ramrods (one probably an early replacement, minor scattered surface pitting, cocks and one steel expertly replaced) (2)
34 cm. barrels
34 cm. barrels
Footnotes
Provenance:
Galerie Fischer, Luzern, 29 June 1990, lot 8612
Gilles Desellier (De Selier) is recorded in Liège between about 1680 and 1710. He was the brother of Philippe Desellier (see lot 282), and probably the father of Guillaume. Gilles delivered thirty carbines and forty pairs of pistols to the army of the Prince of Hanover in 1693








