Pair of Flintlock Pistols

There are four Paris silver marks on this pair of pistols’ cast silver mounts, all of which date from the period 1809-19. The unidentified maker’s mark (in a lozenge the initials LB flanking a cross-like device), which may be that of L. B. Beaugeois, a jeweler recorded at 11 rue Chabanais, Pairs, whose mark is registered in 1810-11, also appears on several gold mounts of the Museum’s fowling piece by Nicolas Noël Boutet (Acc. No. 42.50.7). The mounts of the pistols and fowling piece share in common heavy, space-filling floral and scroll ornament, and both have stocks combining inlays of metal foil and wire. The style of both the pistols and fowling piece, in absence of specific Empire motifs, suggests the period of restoration of the monarchy in France following the fall of Napoleon in 1815. The shape of the pistols’ butts returns to the more traditional eighteenth-century style, probably a conscious rejection of the squared butts found on pistols made during the Empire (for example, Acc. No. 28.196.1a, b, .2a–l), and a reaffirmation of a style identifiable with the Ancien Regime.