Jonas Schertiger the Younger (Swedish, active 1715–died 1748)
Swedish (Stockholm)
Steel, walnut, brass, and horn
L. 43 3/8 in. (117.8 cm)
Purchase, Gifts of Albrecht Radziwill and Charles M. Schott, Jr., by exchange, and Rogers Fund, 1997 (1997.356)
This rifle exemplifies the diverse influences shaping firearms design in eighteenth-century Sweden. Its slender proportions and small-caliber barrel are modeled after the Silesian Tschinke rifle; the prominent cheek stock is typically German, as is the use of inset brass decoration, yet the flat-faced lock copies French models. The lock mechanism, however, is unmistakably Swedish, the snaphaunce lock being favored in Scandinavia over the wheellock and flintlock commonly used on the Continent. A gunstocker by trade, Jonas Schertiger the Younger was a member of the Stockholm cabinetmaker's guild. His name and the date of manufacture are prominently engraved on the brass inlay on the cheek stock. A blank escutcheon surmounted by a royal crown on the sideplate suggests that this gun was intended for the hunting cabinet of Frederick I of Sweden (r. 1720–51).
