December 10-13, 2024 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/10/2024
Carbine with matching bayonet, 1690-1715. The former with bright three-stage, sighted 35 ½-long barrel of 15-bore with bayonet lug, rounded lock signed in capitals, "grain-painted" stock configured to resemble burled wood, with carved, raised apron around the barrel tang, plain brass mounts including flat scroll side-plate, border engraved drop-shaped escutcheon engraved with the crest of a Gage above '3' and 'T.G', turned baluster ramrod-pipes, brass fore-end cap, and original brass-capped wooden ramrod; together with its socket bayonet numbered '3' to correspond to the carbine, London proof marks and Delany's touchmark near the breech of barrel. Provenance: One of 20 similar stands purchased by Thomas Gage (d. 1754) from noted London gunmaker Henry Delany just prior to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. Thomas was the eldest son and heir of Joseph Gage of Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire and the arms bear his family crest and initials. Gage was a notable Whig MP for Minehead between 1717 and 1721, and later for Tewkesbury between 1721 and 1754. In 1720 he was created Baron Gage of Castlebar, County Mayo and Viscount Gage of Castle Island, County Kerry. In 1744, on the death of his cousin Sir William Gage (1695-1744) 7th Baronet of Firle Park, Sussex he succeeded to the title of 8th Baronet and inherited the Firle Park estates. These 20 stands later formed part of a display of arms and armour in the armoury hall at Shirburn Castle, the seat of the Earls of Macclesfield since 1716 and had been in the castle since the time of the Gage families’ prior ownership, until the dispersal of the armoury in 2003; the firearms thence to the Penrose Collection of 18th century British arms until sold this year.