Skip to main content
Bonhams
Search

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

A Cased Pair Of Scottish 50-Bore Percussion Duelling Or Target Pistols By Alex.r Martin, Glasgow, Mid-19th Century
The medals and associate ephemera and uniforms of Arthur Watts, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons
A Pair Of Highland All-Metal Percussion Belt Pistols Signed Paton & Walsh Perth, Mid 19th century
A Silver-Mounted Left-Hand Dagger, probably German, Italian or English Late 16th Century Or Later
FOUR REPRODUCTION CARVED POWDER HORNS/FLASKS.late 20th century.
THREE CARVED COCONUT ITEMS.18th/19th century.
A COLLECTION OF ANTIQUE AND REPRODUCTION POWDER FLASKS AND RELATED SPORTING ITEMS.
THREE VICTORIAN ARMS AND ARMOUR DECORATIVE ITEMS.
Previous Lot
Next Lot
A Fine Pair Of Tusco-Emilian 38-Bore Snaphaunce Belt Pistols (2) image 1
A Fine Pair Of Tusco-Emilian 38-Bore Snaphaunce Belt Pistols (2) image 2
Lot 222*

A Fine Pair Of Tusco-Emilian 38-Bore Snaphaunce Belt Pistols
One Signed 'Brento' And Dated 1763

Fine Antique Arms & Armour Including An Important Group Of British Firearms
23 September 2020, 10:30 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £5,687.50 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Arms and Armour specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

A Fine Pair Of Tusco-Emilian 38-Bore Snaphaunce Belt Pistols
One Signed 'Brento' And Dated 1763

With slender two-stage barrels each decorated with engraved panels of scrollwork at the rear of the breech, in front of the turned girdle, and at the muzzle, shaped tangs engraved with foliage on a hatched ground, rounded locks (one inscribed and dated on the inside) chiselled in relief with scrolls, a mask, a demi-figure, profile heads, a bird's head, and, on each pan-cover, a dog's head, the heads of the retaining bolts each chiselled with a cherub-mask (one bolt and one top jaw replaced), moulded figured full stocks (some repairs and restorations) partially carved in relief with scrollwork against a punched ground, the fore-ends each with a demi-figure, chiselled and pierced steel mounts decorated in low relief with scrollwork, monster-heads, demi-figures, and portrait busts, spurred pommels with pairs of demi-figures blowing trumpets, the escutcheons each with coronet above and grotesque mask beneath, chiselled triggers each issuing from a bird's head, and wooden ramrods each with iron-mounted horn tip (some scattered surface pitting, one belt hook missing) (2)
27.7 cm. barrels

Footnotes

Provenance
Gustav Didderich, Philadelphia
Christie's London, Antique Arms and Armour, 16 December 2002, lot 194

Exhibited
Loan Exhibition of European Arms and Armor, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 3 August-27 September 1931, cat. no. 310 (illustrated)

For information on the gunmakers of Brento, see Nolfo di Carpegna, 'Notes on Central Italian Firearms of the Eighteenth Century', part I, J.A.A.S,, vol. VII, no. 2 (June 1971), pp. 18-19: 'Notes of the Firearms of the Tosco-Emilian Apennines', Arms and Armor Annual, Vol. 1, 1973 (R. Held, ed.), pp. 229-231

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Cased Pair Of Scottish 50-Bore Percussion Duelling Or Target Pistols By Alex.r Martin, Glasgow, Mid-19th Century
The medals and associate ephemera and uniforms of Arthur Watts, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons
A Pair Of Highland All-Metal Percussion Belt Pistols Signed Paton & Walsh Perth, Mid 19th century
A Silver-Mounted Left-Hand Dagger, probably German, Italian or English Late 16th Century Or Later
FOUR REPRODUCTION CARVED POWDER HORNS/FLASKS.late 20th century.
THREE CARVED COCONUT ITEMS.18th/19th century.
A COLLECTION OF ANTIQUE AND REPRODUCTION POWDER FLASKS AND RELATED SPORTING ITEMS.
THREE VICTORIAN ARMS AND ARMOUR DECORATIVE ITEMS.