Product Details
A MAGNIFICENT CASED PAIR OF 12mm PERCUSSION SILVER AND GILT DECORATED TARGET-PISTOLS SIGNED BLANCHARD, PARIS, no visible serial numbers,
circa 1865, with 10 1/4in. octagonal barrels in the white with alternating broad and narrow blind flutes for much of their exposed length, the top-flat at breech signed in gilt script 'HOULLIER BLANCHARD BTE. A PARIS', bordered in silver wire with gilt arabesque terminal, the muzzle and breech flats bordered en-suite, the panels with silver stylised tulips, bar and bead fore-sights, standing notch rear-sights, the top-tangs with gilded top-nails and borders surrounding silver flowers, moulded and fenced snails, bar action hump-backed locks with dipped tails and inlaid with gilt wire borders filled with silver and gilt vine decoration, en-suite hammers, ebony half-stocks deeply chisel-carved with running vines against a stippled ground, moulded 'balon' style iron butt-caps inlaid with further silver and gilt vines and borders, en-suite spurred iron trigger guard bows and tangs, the guards with pierced mounts behind the plain triggers, barrel key escutcheons with gilt wire borders and no provision for ramrods, complete with their maker's original mahogany case lined and compartmented in the continental style in blue velvet, maker's details blocked in gilt to the inside of lid and containing a full complement of deluxe accessories including an ebony loading mallet, a scissors mould decorated en-suite to the pistols, a Boche of Paris powder flask with observation window, automatic action and white metal embossed panel to body, ebony cleaning and loading rods for each pistol, an ebony cap-pot, turn-screw and nipple-key, together with a nickel oil-bottle, the outside of case with fine brass stringing and inlet fretwork panels, the case in turn with its original leather protective outer
Provenance: Charles Hypolite Houllier (1811 - 1871) was born into a family of Liege gunmakers. He moved to Paris and worked for Blanchard. In 1837 he married Lucrèce Blanchard, daughter of the Parisian gunmaker. After the marriage the firm took the name Houllier-Blanchard and traded at 36 rue de Cléry. During the French Revolution of 1848 the Houllier-Blanchard store was ransacked, and several weapons were stolen. The firm was awarded medals at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the International Exhibition of 1862, both in London, and the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867.
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Estimate £6,000-8,000