Beschreibung:

A .550 CALIBRE GERMAN BUTT RESERVOIR AIR RIFLE BY WENTSLAU A EHRNBREITSTEIN, NO. 171, CIRCA 1740 with octagonal swamped sighted barrel (back-sight removed), engraved with scrolls and numbered '99' over the breech, signed bevelled lock numbered '171', fitted with dummy flintlock mechanism, engraved with an artilleryman within a scroll (cock missing), double set trigger, figured walnut full stock carved with a raised moulding about the rear ramrod-pipe and the trigger-guard, the butt with raised cheek-piece carved with scrolls, engraved brass mounts comprising pierced side-plate decorated with hounds in pursuit of a doe, and incorporating the cocking indicator, butt-plate with engraved trap covering the reservoir valve, decorated with a pair of hounds beneath a stag on a plinth, three ramrod-pipes (fore-end cap missing), and horn-tipped ramrod 79.8 cm; 31 3/8 in barrel Wentzlau is recorded in Koblenz circa 1747-84 and was hofbüchsenmacher to the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt for whom he made at least six airguns. Guns by him are signed both in Neuwiedt and Ehrenbreitstein, the latter are apparently always serial numbered. The lowest serial number recorded is 76 and the highest is 147, on a gun now preserved in the Badisches Landesmuseum. A gun by Friedrich Jakob Bosler of Darmstadt, formerly in the W. Keith Neal Collection, has a strikingly similar side-plate to the present gun and was sold Christie's 9th November 2000, lot 130. See A. Hoff 1972, pp. 52-3.