A VERY RARE 15 BORE SPANISH MIQUELET-LOCK SPORTING GUN BY ANTONIO GUISASOLA, CIRCA 1790

Product Description

For Sale or Trade! Can bring to the 2025 CLA Show!
A VERY RARE 15 BORE SPANISH MIQUELET-LOCK SPORTING GUN BY ANTONIO GUISASOLA, CIRCA 1790:
Incorporates a two-stage barrel retained by a single slender pierced iron band, fitted with gold ‘spider’ fore-sight enclosed by gold scrolls, chiseled girdle decorated with foliage and gilt scrolls.
The octagonal breech is stamped with a series of gold-lined decorative marks and the gold-lined punzón (cartouche) of Domingo de Clabe, and a further punzón including a dog and a hound, inlaid with a gold line and with gold-lined vent.
The breech is fitted with a molded silver back-sight on a saddle. The engraved tang is decorated with scrolling foliage, and the scroll-engraved beveled miquelet-lock is stamped with the gold-lined punzón of ‘Guisasola’ and with engraved lock and bridle.
The figured pear wood half-stock is carved with scrolling foliage about the ramrod aperture and the tang. The ‘Catalan’ style butt utilizes engraved iron mounts comprising openwork side-plate decorated with foliage. The trigger-guard incorporates a punzón en suite with the lock, and butt-plate with a foliate terminal. This gun sports a horn-tipped whale baleen ramrod, not uncommon on fine European arms.
Overall length: 53”; Barrel length: 37 5/8”; Lock plate: 5 1/8”; Bore: .65
Provenance: Dr James D. Lavin. (Author of “A History of Spanish Arms”)
Antonio Guisasola is recorded in Eibar as a barrelmaker. His name is on a fowling piece made in 1796 that was presented to Carlos IV, now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 16.135). See Lavin 1965, p. 262.

A fine Escopeta made by Guisasola circa 1800 was found in New Mexico. It is a good example of those civilian weapons used by officers and gentlemen in Spain and the colonies. Less refined specimens were in common usage by settlers. See Brinckerhoff 1972, Spanish Military Weapons in Colonial America 1700-1821 p. 26.