‡ A FINE PAIR OF 20 BORE AUSTRIAN (STYRIAN) FLINTLOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS BY THOMAS WASTL, GRAZ, CIRCA

‡ A FINE PAIR OF 20 BORE AUSTRIAN (STYRIAN) FLINTLOCK HOLSTER PISTOLS BY THOMAS WASTL, GRAZ, CIRCA 1700 with swamped sighted barrels signed on the flats and chiselled with foliage towards the muzzles, grotesque masks and a stepped moulding over the breeches, border-engraved tapering tangs with moulded back-sights, stepped bevelled locks signed beneath the pans, inscribed ‘Graz’ between the steel spring, engraved with a pair of scrolls on a punched ground on the tails and with border ornament, fitted with bevelled cocks with finely chiselled necks engraved faceted pans and steels, full stocks carved with a moulding over the fore-ends (repaired), swelling about the rear ramrod-pipe, carved with foliage beneath the locks and tangs (one cracked on each side of the trigger-guard), burnished steel mounts comprising spurred pommels fitted with grotesque mask caps, open foliate side-plates with monsterhead terminals, crowned escutcheons formed as a crowned pair of fronds each charges with the owners arms, faceted trigger-guard with foliate finials and a pair of faceted ramrod-pipes, horn fore-end caps, and horn-tipped ramrods, perhaps the original, 36.8 cm barrels (2) The arms are those of the Counts Wildenstein, Styria. Probably by Thomas Wasterl, recorded circa 1691/2 in Laibach (present day Ljubljana, Slovenia). See Schedelman 1944, p. 37.