A Fine Silver Mounted Flintlock Holster Pistol by H. Delany Londini. 15 ¼” overall, 9” swamped two-stage barrel turned at the girdle, breech with raised top flat signed ‘H.Delany Londini’ in capitals, engraved with acanthus at the rear & struck with London proof marks, gold lined touch hole, border engraved tang decorated with foliage & grooved for sighting, rounded lock with narrow raised edge & signed ‘ H.Delany’ in capitals on a foliate scroll, the tail decorated with a winged insect on a foliate scroll, rounded cock and steel. Moulded figured full stock lightly carved in relief with foliage behind the rear ramrod pipes & around the barrel tang, cast & chased silver mounts comprising sideplate pierced with scrolling foliage centred on a draped ledge, vacant escutcheon flanked by scrolls with a grotesque mask above & a Devil’s head below. Pommel with engraved spurs, decorated with symmetrical foliage on both side & with satyr’s mask cap centred on a border of scrolls, trigger guard with foliate finial, baluster ramrod pipes and horn tipped ramrod.
Circa 1725-30.
Very fine holster pistol in good condition, forend repaired.
Henry Delany (or Delaney), a Huguenot, was admitted to the freedom of the Gunmakers’ Company in 1715. He is recorded as a maker of fine breech-loading sporting guns and silver-mounted pistols, and was the maker of a large crossbow with built-in cranequin in the Marquis of Bath’s collection, Longleat. He retired in 1745, his will was proved the following year
See ‘Great British Gun Makers’ 1540-1740, Niel & Back pages 405-10
Ex David Weaver Collection