Expo number 4

 

Lock

With flat surfaces, the rear end of the plate leaf-shaped, serpentine with match-holder and thumb-screw, both of traditional shape, horizontally-moving sear mounted between two long brackets, struck on the inner side 'GH' (not in St.), half-bridle, supporting the tumbler, chiselled with a cross.

 

Barrel

With long rectangular breech, with reeded and fluted upper face, becoming polygonal, calyx-shaped muzzle of circular section with a frieze of incised arabesques behind it, brass bead front-sight and iron back-sight formed as a reeded block, rectangular iron pan with a backward-hinging cover, brazed to the breech; a bell mark (cf. St. 4864) is on each of the chamfered faces immediately forward of the breech.

 

Stock

With fore-end of rectangular and butt of octagonal section and in front of the lock a massive wooden support block carved with raised foliate scrolls and leaves in panels on all sides including the flat base, a large lion's head carved in high relief and in inverted position is on the side facing the butt, the trigger-guard emerging from its mouth; a large coat of arms - a pair of dividers chevron wise between three trefoils (2 & 1) and over the shield a barred helmet, mantling and a crest with a pair of dividers en suite with the shield - ; is carved on each side of the support.

 

Mounts

Iron, comprising a serpentine sideplate and a trigger-guard indented for the fingers; steel ramrod with a threaded narrow end.

 

Remarks

(MARKS) According to Hoff the mark on the lockplate is 'GR' (St. 2695), but it appears to be actually 'GH'. The armorial device on the support block belonged to the family of Biscop (Bisschop, Buscop), which was of Flemish origin, but chiefly lived in Middelburg, capital of the province of Zeeland, during the 17th C. 1) The bell mark is associated with Holland 1575­1625.

(TECHNLOGICAL) On the barrel type, cf. Cat. 26. The vertically-hinging pan-cover is peculiar to a number of matchlock target guns, cf. for instance Cat. 23 and 26; it would simultaneously act as a fence and could thus replace the separate fixed fence behind the pan as found on the standard-type matchlocks. There is evidence on the left side of the stock for a lock.

 

Provenance

Joe Kindig Jr.; Baron Armand van den Bogaerde.

 

Literature

-Heeswijk I (1899) No. 1022

-DuMont (1971) p. 154

-Hoff (1978) p. 27

-Van der Sloot (1978) No. 229

-Hoff (Vol. 11969) p. 13-15

-Ibid. (1978) p. 24-30

-Schutters in Holland (1988) p. 220-225

 

Exhibited at

Stedelijk Museum 'De Lakenha'l, Leiden, July-Sept.1978

Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, May - July 1988

 

1) Information kindly supplied by the Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie, The Hague, per letter of 26 Feb.1991 to the Legermuseum.