A FINE AND RARE PAIR OF 22 BORE FRENCH FLINTLOCK LONG HOLSTER PISTOLS BY PIRAUBE AUX GALLERIES A PARIS, DATED 1697. with lightly swamped barrels fitted with silver fore-sights, signed in full and dated on a long central panel engraved with sprays of strapwork foliage at the muzzle end and chiselled with a grotesque at the breech end, moulded breeches chiselled with opposing classical warrior profile busts beneath a canopy and a trophy-of-arms all within a strapwork frame (areas of light wear), rectangular tangs engraved with a stylized grotesque and border ornament, stepped bevelled locks engraved with trophies on the tails, engraved and chiselled faceted pans signed in full beneath, the lock-plates and cocks engraved with strapwork foliage and border ornament en suite with the muzzles, finely chiselled steels decorated with a moustacheod espagnolette mask on the outer face and the spurs formed as grotesque monsters, highly figured walnut full stocks carved in low relief with linear mouldings over the fore-ends (one fore-end expertly repaired), scrolling tendrils with monsterhead terminals behind the rear ramrod-pipes and on either side of the barrel tangs, the butts inlaid in silver wire with scrolls over the spines and with a pattern of wavy lines about the barrel tangs, the side-plates and the pommel spurs, chiselled steel mounts comprising solid side-plates decorated with a framework of foliage incorporating an oval central panel and with a pierced design of foliage on the tails, moulded trigger-guards engraved en suite with the locks and with acanthus finials, spurred pommels engraved with elaborate trophies-of-arms carrying differing portrait medallions on each side, the caps finely chiselled with acanthus and a laurel frame enriched with gold pellets enclosing a mounted classical warrior on a punched ground, vacant escutcheons carried by a pair of addorsed herms, and surmounted by a ducal coronet, a pair of faceted ramrod-pipes (the mounts with areas of light wear), and steel-tipped wooden ramrods, perhaps the original . 56cm; 22in. (2). Provenance. Clay P. Bedford . Charles H. Moses, Ashtablula, Ohio 1966. Literature. Wallace B. Gusler and James D. Lavin, Decorated Firearms 1540-1870, from the Collection of Clay P. Bedford, Williamsburg, 1977, pp.34-7. Bertrand Piraube has been described as the most important figure in the decorative development of French firearms circa 1670-1724, and thus the history of European firearms as a whole. There is evidence that his first workshop was in Saint Germain en Laye, north west of Paris but little is known of this period. On 25th January 1670 Louis XIV granted him a brevet de logement in the Galeries du Louvre. This appointment, which was confirmed in March the following year, established Piraube as primus inter pares amongst the gunmakers working for Louis XIV. In German Brice`s Description de la Ville de Paris, published in various editions between 1698 and 1718, he was described as a gunmaker who produced pieces of rare beauty. Working within the precincts of the Royal Palace freed Piraube from the restrictions of the Parisian Guilds and consequently he was able to employ as many apprentices and journeymen as his commissions required. It comes as no surprise that a significant number of the great European Ancestral Gunrooms have firearms by him, including a fowling-piece at Windsor Castle believed to have been presented to Charles II of England by Louis XIV; a pair of pistols and a fowling-piece that were presented to the young Charles XI of Sweden as part of an exceptional gift including twelve richly caparisoned horses each with a brace of pistols in the saddle holsters and a number of fowling pieces; and the gunroom of the former Electors of Saxony in Dresden which includes no less than eleven long arms and fourteen pairs of pistols by him. Unlike many of his contemporaries Piraube dated the greater part of his firearms and thus one is able to follow the development of his style in considerable detail. The extant firearms by him are dated 1673, 1679, 1681, 1682, 1683, 1685, 1688, 1689, 1690, 1693, 1694, 1696, 1697, 1698, 1699, 1700, and 1715. In addition to this list two further pairs of pistols with steel mounts, dated 1700 and 1701 respectively, are recorded in the gewehrkammer of Duke August Wilhelm of Brunswick Luneburg (1662-1731). The present pair of pistols represent an important turning point in Piraube`s style, along with another pair of pistols dated 1696, one year earlier. The shorter side-plates with their oval medallions, the engraved oval medallions on each side of the pommels, the masks on the front of the steels and the geometric panels on the trigger-guards are among the features characteristic of the new Bérain style. While many of the features of this new style were a reintroduction from the mid-17th century others were entirely new, such as the inset geometrical panels on the trigger-guards and the espagnolette masks on the front of the steels. These were first published eight years after these pistols were made in 1705 as a supplement by de la Collombe to the reissue of Simonin`s earlier pattern book. This also provides a useful insight into pattern books of this period and how the most fashionable firearms often preceded the publication of the designs.. See J. F. Hayward 1963, pp.32-47; the same author 1980, pp. 118-157; and D. J. Larocca 1992, pp. 184-207.
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