‡ AN IMPORTANT HIGHLY DECORATED 28 BORE GERMAN WHEEL-LOCK SPORTING RIFLE STOCKED BY THE SO-CALLED MEISTER DER TIERKOPFRANKE, DATED 1628 with octagonal swamped sighted barrel rifled with eight grooves, encrusted with silver in high relief against a delicately matted ground over its entire outer surface with winged demi-figures, garlands, ball flowers, roses, espagnolette masks and grotesques all within ropework frames and enriched with silver pellets, the back-sight surrounded by the date and maker’s initials ‘16HW28’, integral tang decorated with flowers and pellets en suite, flat lock fitted with external wheel retained by a bracket and with domed cover, moulded dog, delicately filed dog spring, sliding pan-cover, and flash-guard, encrusted with silver en suite with the barrel, including a winged demi figure on the lockplate, an eagle displayed on the wheel-cover and a panel of small flowerheads at the base of the dog, double set trigger, full stock profusely carved over its surface with elaborate designs of delicate leafy scrolls with differing monsterhead terminals against a stippled ground (small cracks and minor losses, fore-end with very small internal repairs), including hounds in pursuit of a hare on each side of the fore-end, a trumpeting demi-figure seated on a scroll terminating in a hare and an espagnolette profile opposite the lock, a bouquet in a vase and a hound beneath, the cheek-piece decorated on the left with further monsterhead scrolls inhabited by game animals and with patchbox on the right, the latter with a panel above filled with a hound in pursuit of a stag (patchbox cover a 19th century replacement), carved with a panel of delicate scale ornament beneath the butt and at the tip of the fore-end, inlaid with silver wire scrolls about the tang, barrel bolt apertures, cheek-piece, spine of the butt and above the patchbox (small losses, the central rondel of the cheek-piece missing, one piece lifting around the trigger-plate), silver trigger-guard shaped for the fingers, gilt iron trigger-plate, small engraved silver fore-end cap, iron butt-plate (perhaps an early working replacement) bordered by engraved silver plaques (one missing), associated iron-tipped ramrod and in fine condition throughout, 78.0 cm barrel ProvenanceMagniac Collection, sold Christies, Manson & Woods, 2nd July 1892, lot 1028 (£110 5s).Zschille Collection, sold Christies, Manson & Woods, 25th January 1897, lot 19 (£56).Sam Austin 26th April 1917, catalogue number 619 ($626).William Randolph Hearst sold to Gimbel Bros., Inc., May 26, 1941 for $298.50.Joe Kindig Jr. (1898-1971), thence by descent LiteratureFrancis Henry Cripps-Day, A Record of Armour Sales 1881-1924, London 1925, p. 33 and p. 101.Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 1949, p. 55 fig. 1.Hans Schedelmann, Die Grossenbüchsenmacher, Braunschweig 1972, p. 98.Hans Schedelmann, The Master of the Animal-Head scroll, in Arms and Armor Annual, Robert Held (ed.), 1975, pp. 182-3 (illustrated), p. 186. This remarkable anonymous gunstocker, named the master of the animal head tendril (Meister Der Tierkopfranke), was probably employed at the Imperial court in Vienna where eleven firearms attributed to him remain extant and are now preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Dated firearms suggest a period of activity between 1624-59 for this maker, or workshop, making the present gun one of his earlier works. More than fifty wheel-lock guns, rifles and pistols, and one flintlock rifle with this distinctive carving have been identified to date, three of which were made for Emperor Ferdinand III. The quality of the silver encrustation and carving on the present rifle is of a notably high quality within this group and compares closely with another sporting rifle by him, also from the collection of Joe Kindig Jr., now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no. 2018.103). The gun in New York has been described as a masterpiece of German baroque gunmaking. Part proceeds to benefit the Acquisition Fund of the Arms and Armor department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
