FLINTLOCK PISTOL KIT "BOUTET MANUFACTURE... - Lot 10 - Osenat

Lot 10
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Estimation :
35000 - 45000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 64 400EUR
FLINTLOCK PISTOL KIT "BOUTET MANUFACTURE... - Lot 10 - Osenat
FLINTLOCK PISTOL KIT "BOUTET MANUFACTURE A VERSAILLES", oak, with folding carrying handle. Inside sheathed in green cloth with fine silver thread trim. Opened, it features: A magnificent long, fine pair of flintlock pistols. Flintlock barrels with hairline rifling, slightly blunderbusses at the muzzles, with silver sights, mat bronzed, on a mat background, signed "Boutet Directeur Artiste", "Manufacture à Versailles", nicely decorated at the muzzle with two gold fillets and, at the thunderbolts, with a harp, lozenges, a spider's web and four hallmarks "JBC", "NB", "LC" and "NB" (variant), with fine sights. Finely engraved breech pins. Lock plates signed "Manufre à Versailles" and "Boutet directeur artiste" and flat-bodied swan-neck hammers nicely engraved with friezes and guilloche. Upper jaws and batteries finely engraved en suite. Steel day and spark guards. Roller springs. Adjustable triggers. Iron fittings, cut, chased, engraved and polished, decorated with foliate urns, friezes and scrolls. Inlaid counter plates with foliage and floret decoration, three flanged chopstick holders. Long shaft crosses in selected waxed walnut, finely squared, flat-backed. Double-friezed oval knobs. All screws with guilloche pattern. Wooden sticks with iron and brass pastillé horn tips. And accessories: A hammer, a mallet, a screwdriver, three chopsticks (for tamping, cleaning and dosing). All in boxwood, some with brass fittings. A powder flask in blond half-round horn, with flared back and brass fittings, a polished steel bullet mould with flower screw and jet cutter, a metal T-shaped cleaning rod, an oil cruet, a brass tip, a pin and key. Length: 44.5 cm. Caliber: 11.8 mm. Box 48.5 x 29.5 x Ht: 9.8 cm. B.E. Directoire period. Provenance : - By family tradition, this box is said to have been given by Joséphine Bonaparte, wife of Emperor Napoléon I, to her lover Hippolyte CHARLES (1772-1837). - Purchased from CHARLES' descendants by Charles MARCHAL. - Exhibited at the Biennale des antiquaires at the Grand Palais. - Private collection. - Jean Louis Noisiez Collection Biography: CHARLES (Louis-Hippolyte), 1772-1837, captain. Best known as Joséphine's lover after her marriage to Bonaparte. A volunteer in 1791, he was born in Romans and soon became part of the Bonaparte entourage. In April 1796, while attached to the interior army, he was introduced to Joséphine. He took part in her trip to Italy. But it was in Egypt that Bonaparte discovered the extent of his misfortune, thanks to the news that reached him at the time. His anger on his return was terrible. Joséphine had to break with Charles, who devoted himself to munitions.
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