Pair of Miquelet Pistols

The barrel is round, flaring toward the muzzle; the breech has a flat facet on each side, and the muzzle is encircled by a ring molding. The barrel is inlaid with heavy silver decoration at the breech, on a lengthwise strip, and at the muzzle; this decoration is engraved with scrolls, shells (rocailles), and flowers typical of the rococo style.

The lock is of the type conventionally called "miquelet," in which all parts except for the sear are mounted on the outside of the lock plate. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the end of the sixteenth century, this mechanism was subsequently adopted by many countries around the Mediterranean, in the Middle East, and in the Caucasus. In Spain it was preferred over the French-type flintlock and continued in use up to the middle of the ninteenth century.

The stock is decorated with large silver plaques pierced and engraved with floral motifs, a bird, a rabbit, and on the underside of the forestock, a double-headed crowned eagle. The decoration on the grip includes dragons, lions, and foliate scrolls. The comb and the heel of the butt are reinforced with solid silver mounts. The trigger guard is of heavy cast silver chiseled with rococo shells and scrolls. The side plate is mounted with a long belt hook of steel. The ramrod is provided with a retaining spring catch and a worm to extract unfired wads and bullets.

Short guns and pistols of large caliber, with barrels flaring at the muzzle (blunderbusses), had developed in Europe by the mid-seventeenth century. They were designed for shooting at close range, and were loaded with buckshot or even several pistol bullets. As such, they were popular as traveling and boarding weapons, the flaring muzzle making it easier to reload while in a swaying stagecoach, onboard a ship, or on horseback. It is a peculiarity of the blunderbuss, whether full-size or pistol, that it often retains the butt shape of a carbine.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the town of Ripoll, not far from Barcelona, was an important center of arms production, a considerable part of which was exported to the Mediterranean and, particularly, to Spanish America. In spite of these worldwide trade connections, the often exuberant decoration of Catalan firearms has a distinct folk-art flavor.