Highlights

Description

Hunting was the privilege and passion of the nobility. This precious wheellock gun is one of the characteristic achievements of the Munich court workshops, where cutting and chiselling steel decorations were particularly cultivated. The Munich masters Emanuel and Daniel Sadeler were outstanding masters of this highly elaborate technique. Ornaments and figurative depictions are executed in low relief, as here on the lock plate, which depicts a hunter in dense ornamentation taking aim at a stag. Unlike a gun, a rifle shoots bullets. This model has a wheellock firing mechanism that works much like a present-day lighter.