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STRANGE ANCIENT WEAPONS - LOUIS XIII FOWLING PIECE - THE WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL GUN !
“The Most Beautiful Gun in the World”: Louis XIII Fowling Piece
An Obituary from the New York Times, June 7 1999, by William H. Honan.
“Randolph Bullock, a curator emeritus of arms and armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art……
“As a curator, Bullock was frequently involved in acquisitions. One of the most extraordinary of these was the museum’s long effort to acquire the fowling piece of Louis XIII of France. That legendary long gun was then owned by William G. Renwick, a reclusive gun collector who kept his prizes hidden from sight in his home in Tucson, Ariz.
“The Louis XIII hunting weapon is not only considered the most elegant 17th-century long gun in existence, but it is also one of only three flintlocks known to have been made in the workshop of Pierre and Marin Le Bourgeoys of Lisieux, the gunsmiths who invented the flintlock ignition mechanism.
“Bullock was one of three Metropolitan curators beginning in the 1920s who tried to acquire the weapon, which they called “the most beautiful gun in the world,” before it could be snatched away by the Smithsonian Institution, another museum or a private collector.
“Several times it appeared that Renwick had been wooed and won, but he always backed off at the last minute. Then, after his death in 1972, his collection came up for auction at Sotheby’s in London. Bullock pounced, and an agent for the Metropolitan bid $300,000 and gained the prize.”
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