A RARE 37-BORE CATALAN FLINTLOCK FOWLING-PIECE, EARLY 18TH CENTURY with Brescian slender tapering sighted barrel cut with a series of four very narrow raised decorative ribs over the rear section, the pair on the upper face continuing to the muzzle and the breech signed by the barrelmaker "Giovan Beretta" in stamped letters, rounded lock chiselled and engraved with scrolling foliage, the tail of the lock-plate, the pan and the steel each decorated with a chiselled grotesque mask in the Catalan fashion, the cock decorated with a chiselled acanthus scroll projecting from its rear and the head of the retaining screw chiselled in the form of an expanded flowerhead, with figured walnut full stock, the butt of so-called Madrid type and carved in low relief, decorated with a carved panel of leaf ornament along its underside and with carved voluted scrolls elongated over the sides, the rear portion of the stock overlaid with an elaborate series of large pierced engraved sheet-brass plaques in the Catalan tradition, involving on the underside a scrollwork panel inhabited by a marine monster, pairs of flying dragons enclosing both the lock and the side-plate, and a further scrollwork panel about the barrel tang, with brass mounts decorated in continuation of the predominant Catalan themes, the side-plate formed as a sheet-brass plaque decorated with an exotic bird and a dragon (the rear segment missing), the butt-plate tang elongated over the comb and decorated with a two-headed bird and an entwined pair of lengthy serpents, the trigger-guard engraved with scrollwork over the bow and with large finials each pierced and engraved with symmetrical scrollwork interlace, with three moulded ramrod-pipes, a brass moulded band beneath the muzzle, and original ramrod with brass tip en suite with the ramrod-pipes (the fore-end with several small cracks towards the muzzle) 124.5 cm; 49 in barrel The barrelmaker, Giovanni Beretta of Gardone and Brescia, is recorded together with his brothers Ludovico and Bartolomeo selling 2,018 barrels for civilian use within the period July 1686-July 1689. It is most likely that a proportion of these were exported to the Spanish and Catalan centres of gunmaking: see di Carpegna 1997, p.146. James Lavin, the late authority on Catalonian gunmaking, has suggested that the fluted downward-curving style of butt earned the name "Madrid" solely due to its popularity with gunmakers in that city rather than being its place of origin. Lavin suggests that this style may have come from Castile by way of Cataluña. For reference to this observation and for an account of Catalonian gunmaking see Lavin 1972, pp.2-12. The use of a "French" flintlock decorated in the Catalan taste in place of the traditional Catalan style of miquelet-lock is highly unusual.
A RARE 37-BORE CATALAN FLINTLOCK FOWLING-PIECE, EARLY 18TH CENTURY with Brescian slender tapering sighted barrel cut with a series of four very narrow raised decorative ribs over the rear section, the pair on the upper face continuing to the muzzle and the breech signed by the barrelmaker "Giovan Beretta" in stamped letters, rounded lock chiselled and engraved with scrolling foliage, the tail of the lock-plate, the pan and the steel each decorated with a chiselled grotesque mask in the Catalan fashion, the cock decorated with a chiselled acanthus scroll projecting from its rear and the head of the retaining screw chiselled in the form of an expanded flowerhead, with figured walnut full stock, the butt of so-called Madrid type and carved in low relief, decorated with a carved panel of leaf ornament along its underside and with carved voluted scrolls elongated over the sides, the rear portion of the stock overlaid with an elaborate series of large pierced engraved sheet-brass plaques in the Catalan tradition, involving on the underside a scrollwork panel inhabited by a marine monster, pairs of flying dragons enclosing both the lock and the side-plate, and a further scrollwork panel about the barrel tang, with brass mounts decorated in continuation of the predominant Catalan themes, the side-plate formed as a sheet-brass plaque decorated with an exotic bird and a dragon (the rear segment missing), the butt-plate tang elongated over the comb and decorated with a two-headed bird and an entwined pair of lengthy serpents, the trigger-guard engraved with scrollwork over the bow and with large finials each pierced and engraved with symmetrical scrollwork interlace, with three moulded ramrod-pipes, a brass moulded band beneath the muzzle, and original ramrod with brass tip en suite with the ramrod-pipes (the fore-end with several small cracks towards the muzzle) 124.5 cm; 49 in barrel The barrelmaker, Giovanni Beretta of Gardone and Brescia, is recorded together with his brothers Ludovico and Bartolomeo selling 2,018 barrels for civilian use within the period July 1686-July 1689. It is most likely that a proportion of these were exported to the Spanish and Catalan centres of gunmaking: see di Carpegna 1997, p.146. James Lavin, the late authority on Catalonian gunmaking, has suggested that the fluted downward-curving style of butt earned the name "Madrid" solely due to its popularity with gunmakers in that city rather than being its place of origin. Lavin suggests that this style may have come from Castile by way of Cataluña. For reference to this observation and for an account of Catalonian gunmaking see Lavin 1972, pp.2-12. The use of a "French" flintlock decorated in the Catalan taste in place of the traditional Catalan style of miquelet-lock is highly unusual.
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.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
