Percussion Exhibition Pistol
Signed by Gilles Michel Louis Moutier-Le Page French
Decorated by Antoine Vechte French
Barrel by Léopold Bernard French
Commissioned by the renowned Paris gunmaking firm of Le Page, these are the only known pistols executed by Antoine Vechte (1799–1868), a virtuoso silversmith, sculptor, and chiseler, who was famous in his day as the "nineteenth-century Cellini" in reference to the accomplished Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini. The pistols are unique in their all-steel construction and in the variety of highly original Renaissance-inspired figural ornament. This pistol was exhibited at the French Industry Exhibition in Paris in 1849 and perhaps shown again, along with the other, at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in London in 1851.
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