Original Items: One-of-a-kind. Just acquired from a private collection, these have never before been offered on the open market!
Nicholas-Noël Boutet (1761-1833) was one of the great names in the history of gun-making and was charged by Napoleon with creating richly-decorated arms for presentation to military heroes and foreign heads of state. Some of the guns produced in his workshop are considered to be the finest high-art firearms ever created. Boutet was responsible for the manufacture of a great number of firearms during his life-time as an ‘arquebusier’ (gun-maker). Some of his weapons were exceedingly expensive; a set of nine guns and a pair of pistols made for King Charles IV of Spain, who abdicated in 1808, cost 130,000 francs.
Boutet’s work is rare. Examples may be seen in the UK at Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, the Wallace Collection, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and in the City Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow. There are, of course, many in France and in private ownership. There are also examples in Moscow and Leningrad, and several fine Boutet pieces in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
These are a matched pair of French Napoleonic Wars flintlock officer pistols made by Nicholas-Noël Boutet. They are of moderate size and fitted with octagonal 6.75 inch barrels that are deeply blued and covered with inlaid…