TWO 32 BORE GERMAN OFFICER~S LONG WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS, INTENDED FOR USE AS A PAIR, CIRCA 1640

TWO 32 BORE GERMAN OFFICER~S LONG WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS, INTENDED FOR USE AS A PAIR, CIRCA 1640-50 with minor differences, with tapering barrels formed in two stages, the breeches each struck with three marks, one involving the initials KS (Neue Støckel 8337), the locks retained by three side-nails on white bone washers, each struck on the inside with a mark, ~IM~, fitted with sliding pan-covers with button release, and with the wheels retained by a small crescentic bracket (one expertly restored, the pan release buttons not a pair), ebonised wooden full stocks (small parts of the stocks reblackened), decorated about the barrel tangs and opposite the locks with carved designs of scrolling foliage in low relief on a contrasting stippled ground and picked-out with minute brass nails, flattened pommels each fitted with domed wooden cap decorated en suite with the stocks and bound by an iron band, iron trigger-guards, ramrod-pipes and fore-end caps, and one pistol retaining its original iron-tipped ramrod (the other expertly restored, the iron parts lightly cleaned) 65.8 cm; 25 7/8 in: 65.5 cm; 25¾ in (2) Provenance The Armoury of the Princely house of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, (inv. nos. 259, 260), removed from Schloss Langenburg, sold in this room, 3rd December 2014, lot 238. The carved treatment of the stocks picked-out with brass nails is characteristic of the workshops of the Gsell family of gunmakers of Arzberg, Bavaria. Comparable examples include the stock of a wheel-lock rifle signed by Georg Gsell and dated 1649, in the former Imperial collection, Vienna (D291), and a pair of flintlock Wender guns in the armoury of the Princes von und zu Liechtenstein, Schloss Vaduz.