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A Very Fine Pair Of 30-Bore Brescian Flintlock Holster Pistols image 1
A Very Fine Pair Of 30-Bore Brescian Flintlock Holster Pistols image 2
A Very Fine Pair Of 30-Bore Brescian Flintlock Holster Pistols image 3
A Very Fine Pair Of 30-Bore Brescian Flintlock Holster Pistols image 4
A Very Fine Pair Of 30-Bore Brescian Flintlock Holster Pistols image 5
A Very Fine Pair Of 30-Bore Brescian Flintlock Holster Pistols image 6
Lot 447

A Very Fine Pair Of 30-Bore Brescian Flintlock Holster Pistols
By Francesco Garato, Third Quarter Of The 17th Century

24 November 2010, 11:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £36,000 inc. premium

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A Very Fine Pair Of 30-Bore Brescian Flintlock Holster Pistols
By Francesco Garato, Third Quarter Of The 17th Century

With tapering two-stage sighted barrels with single longitudinal raised rib on the forward section and three matching ribs on the breech section, at the rear the stamped signature 'Lazarino Cominazzo', plain tangs, one engraved 'No. 1', rounded lock-plates each signed in script on the inside and chiselled in high relief with a dragon and a pair of addorsed monkeys each blowing a horn, pierced and chiselled cocks (one expertly replaced), pans, steels and fences on the steel-springs, figured walnut full stocks each with fluted fore-end springing from acanthus foliage carved in relief (each fore-end partly an old replacement with subsequent insets), and steel mounts finely pierced and chiselled in relief in the Brescian manner with foliated scrollwork inhabited by flower-heads, monkeys and scaly dragons, the trigger-guards each with large pierced and chiselled finial, the tangs each with indistinct engraved armoury number '13', the pommels with long spurs and each centred on a button chiselled in relief with a grotesque mask, the tip of each ramrod in the form of a seated monkey supporting a basket on its head (three ramrod-pipes with minor losses)(2)
31.6 cm barrels

Footnotes

Provenance:
W.G. Renwick Collection, Part II, Sotheby & Co., London, 21 November 1972, lot 46 (£6,600)

Literature:
Dr. Thomas T. Hoopes, 'Loan Exhibition: Firearms of Princes', Bulletin of the City of Art Museum of St. Louis, January 1940, p. 14, pl. II(c), where the pistols are described as 'from the Czar of Russia'
Art at Auction (Sotheby's Year Book), 1973
Nolfo di Carpegna, Brescian Firearms, Rome, 1997, p. 179

The Francesco Garato (or Garatto) signature is found on a large number of Brescian firearms, almost entirely pistols, produced over several decades in the second half of the 17th century. Another very fine pair of Garato pistols was sold from the W. Keith Neal Collection by Christie's, London, on 14 December 1976, lot 7 (£24,000)

Additional information

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