Snaphaunce Hunting Rifle
Signed by Jonas Schertiger the Younger Swedish
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, as the snaphaunce lock was 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 cabinetmakers' 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 King Frederick I of Sweden (reigned 1720–51).
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