A Fine & Rare Flintlock Long Holster Pistol by John Shaw of Londini. 20” overall, 12 ¾” tapering barrel in three stages with foliate copper alloy fore sight & three moulded bronze bands along the breech, & struck with London proof marks & barrelsmith’s mark of John Shaw. Border engraved tang decorated with foliage, rounded lock with moulded foliate borders & signed in capitals ‘John Shaw’ across the tail, & below the pan ‘Londini’, steel with border en suite. Moulded figured full stock carved in low relief with foliage around the rear ramrod pipe & barrel tang, cast & chased bronze mounts comprising flamboyant foliate scroll side plate, vacant foliate escutcheon, spurred pommel chased with fronds & variant grotesque mask cap, trigger guard, tang with old painted inventory number, with foliate finial & bow formed as a foliate cartouche, unusually moulded ramrod pipes, and ramrod with bronze tip & iron worm.
Circa 1690-1700
A fine long holster pistol of the best quality by one the best London makers, in very good condition, tang repaired & minor repaired stock cracks.
John Shaw was one of the most distinguished London gunmakers of the late 17th and early 18th centuries and was responsible for making a number of fine guns from the gun cabinet of the Barons Suffield at Gunton Park, Norfolk He was apprenticed in Bristol but already working in London between 1665 & 1668, Free of the London Gunmakers’ Company in 1673, he was appointed Gunmaker-in-Ordinary successively to Kings Charles II, William III and George I. He maintained the King’s Closet of Private Arms at Whitehall 1688 to 1702 and, with Edmund Gifford, was gunmaker to Prince Rupert circa 1675 to 1680. He died in 1720.
Ex David Weaver Collection and previously the gun cabinet of the Barons Suffield at Gunton Park, Norfolk. Presumably made for the first owner of Gunton Park, John Harbord (fourth son of Sir Charles Harbord, d.1679), who died in 1710 at the age of eighty four as a result of a fall from his horse on the way back from shooting. Gunton Park House sale conducted by Irelands on 17 September 1980.
Literature
David S. Weaver and Brian Godwin, 'A Transformation in English Gunmaking 1670-1770', London Park Lane Arms Fair Guide, Spring 2010, p. 78, fig. 14(B)