Exceptional Original Finest Antique Museum Piece, An All Silver Mounted Flintlock Musket, 18th to Early 19th century of Royal Quality

A singularly spectacular ‘statement piece’ for any collection of rare and fine arms or antiques. From the Napoleonic Wars era and the Grande Armee's march on Moscow. Similar to finest examples in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul and the Hermitage in Russia. A most similar gun was presented to President Thomas Jefferson by the Bey of Tunis. A simply superbly beautiful antique Long gun from the 18th to Early 19th century. A miquelet gun with a very high quality miquelet toe lock decorated with chiseled and fretted silver panels and inlaid foliate arabesques. The gun is richly inlaid with silver throughout and fitted with a bone butt plate, with matching silver barrel bands, and the original silver mounted ramrod. Figured hardwood three-quarter stock profusely inlaid over its full length with numerous silver plaques. A most similar gun was a gift of the Russian Romanov Tsar to Augustus II King of Poland and Elector of Saxony on his coronation in Krakow. That gun is published in the book Prunkwaffen: Waffen und Rustungen aus dem Historischen Museum Dresden by Johannes Schobel (Leipzig, 1973) p.249, pl. 178. Guns of this style were popular throughout the whole of Central, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus and The Ottoman Empire. However this is a much higher quality example than is more often seen, and certainly sets it well apart from the usual musket of it's type. The barrel has a monogrammed armourer's mark and date [A.G. 1814.] This may very likely indicate the barrel was imported from Europe. Signed lock, under the lock plate on the spring. 55.5 inches long overall. After the conquest of Istanbul by Mehmed the Conqueror at 1453, construction of the Topkapi Palace was started at the year 1460 and completed at 1478 .The Palace was built upon an Eastern Roman Acropolis located at the Istanbul Peninsula between Sea of Marmara, Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. Topkapi Palace, was the administrative, educational and art center of the Empire for nearly four hundred years since Mehmed the Conqueror until Sultan Abdulmecid who is the thirty-first Sultan. Although Palace was abandoned by the Ottoman Dynasty by moving to the Dolmabahce Palace at middle 19th century, the Topkapi Palace latterly became a world class museum containing some of the worlds finest antique arms and armour. The year of Catherine II’s acquisition of the Gotzkowsky collection is the Hermitage museum’s birth date. In 1764 Empress Catherine II acquired the collection formed by Johann Gotzkowski for King Frederick II of Prussia. A rich Berlin merchant and founder of silk and porcelain factories in Berlin, Johann Gotzkowski was one of Frederick's agents, in charge of the purchase of works of art for the royal collection. Frederick II (the Great), owner of a wonderful collection of contemporary French paintings, ordered Gotzkowski to purchase paintings by old masters. The merchant was a zealous agent and it took him only a few years to put together a large collection, but by this time Frederick had lost large sums of money in the Seven Years War and he refused to make the purchase.

The enterprising merchant was forced to look around for alternative buyers and he offered the collection to Russia. Catherine II was pleased to take the opportunity of hurting Frederick's self-esteem and of proving that the Russian State Treasury, despite losses which were no less than those of Prussia, could still afford to make such an expensive acquisition. From this purchase onwards the Hermitage has become one of the foremost museums in the world, alongside the British Museum, The Metropolitan, The Louvre and The Prado.
As with all our antique guns no license is required as they are all unrestricted antique collectables

Code: 20889