Product Details
AN INTERESTING .56 (25-BORE) BRASS BARRELLED PRINCE DE BOUILLON TYPE FLINTLOCK PISTOL BY D. EGG, CIRCA 1796, no visible serial number,
7in. London proofed brass barrel with slightly swamped muzzle, engraved near the breech 'D. EGG LONDON', border engraved rounded military pattern lock engraved with the makers name 'D. EGG' to the centre, fitted with a swan-neck cock, regulation brass mounted full walnut stock, the mounts include an oval lobed butt-cap trigger-guard 'S' shaped sideplate, small wrist escutcheon and rammer pipe, ramrod a replacement
Provenance: This interesting pistol follows the design of the Pattern 1796 Prince de Bouillon flintlock pistol designed by D. Egg for the Prince. This pistols differences over the standard pattern being first the lock markings, it is engraved with the makers name 'D. EGG' and not the usual Crown G.R. Tower cypher, next its calibre which is .56in. and not .59in. of the Ordnance pattern, it also has a wrist escutcheon which the Ordnance pattern does not. The pistol was probably for commercial sale and probably for a Naval officer. Philippe d' Auvergne, Prince of Bouillon, 1754-1816, was born on Jersey. He was gazetted a midshipman in the Royal Navy in 1770. In 1773 he served on the sloop HMS Racehorse during the Admiralty's Arctic expedition. He was on active service during the American War of Independence and was captured by the French in 1779. While a prisoner in France he was paroled to Duke Godfrey de La Tour d' Auvergne of Bouillon, who was seeking a worthy candidate for adoption as his natural son was disabled. Paroled in 1780, he resumed service with the Navy. In 1787, after genealogists had researched their families' connections, Philippe was adopted by the Duke de Bouillon as his heir. In 1783 he was appointed Commander of the Channel Islands defence forces headquartered on Jersey, given a small fleet of converted Dutch gunboats and also put in charge of maintaining communications and supplying assistance to the Royalist insurgents in France. After Napoleon was defeated, d' Auvergne attempted to finalize his claims to the Duchy of Bouillon but lost his case in court. Despondent and deeply in debt, he died, supposedly by suicide, in London in 1816. in 1796 the Philippe d' Auvergne Pattern pistol was designed for him and some two hundred pairs were made by Durs Egg and Henry Nock at 48s. a pair. It is not known whether they were intended for the Royalists or whether they were for Bouillon's small Naval force. See Howard L. Blackmore, British Military Firearms 1650-1850, 1961, p. 64; and H. Kirke, From the Gun Room to the Throne; being the life of Philip d' Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, 1904
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Estimate £500-600