John Harman, London
With 38 ¼ inch two-stage Spanish barrel with gold spider fore-sight, the octagonal breech inlaid with engraved gold decoration and with two gold-lined maker’s stamps of Francisco Antonio Baeza Y Bis of Madrid (Neue Støckel 7058-9), gold-lined touch-hole, engraved grooved tang, signed engraved flat bevelled lock with stepped tail, figured full stock carved with a shell in relief behind the barrel tang and rear ramrod-pipe, engraved cast and chased silver mounts including trigger-guard with floral finials, and pierced side-plate in the form of a sportsman at rest with his dogs and hanging game, vacant rococo escutcheon with a satyr’s head above, three engraved spring-held silver barrel bands in the Spanish fashion, and silver-tipped ramrod with worm.
Provenance:
Alfred Cox, Glendoick, Perthshire
W. Keith Neal Collection G 468
For another gun with an identical side-plate, formerly in the W. Keith Neal Collection, see W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Messrs Griffin & Tow And W. Bailes, 1989, pp. 68-69, pl. 21e