Cased long gun of Nicholas I of Russia

Double-barrelled flint-lock rifle, the barrels placed one above the other, each having a separate pan by a half-lock. One barrel is rifled with twelve grooves, for shooting large game while the other is smooth-bore for fowling and small game. Both barrels are of octagonal section with a matt blue surface inlaid with small gold stars. The muzzle and breach are gilt, the former engraved with thunder-clouds and lightning, the latter with oblong panels containing formal foliage and stamped with the marks of the maker, Boutet. On the right side of each barrel just above the stock is stamped the number 290, and on the underside: Man. Vlles. Silver fore-sights. The barrels are secured to the fore-end by two sliding pegs. The false breech is engraved with the figure of an ape, and a bird within a lozenge-shaped frame. Although the history of this beautiful weapon is not recorded, the initial on the scutcheon-plate would denote the ownership of the Emperor Nicholas I and not Napoleon who always used a Roman and not a Gothic N as his cypher. The lions with their paws on balls appear to derive from a well-known antique type, of which examples are in the Naples Museum, in the Louvre and in the Loggia dei Lanzi at Florence. See also A1127. Napoleon's official gunmaker was Jean Lepage, Rue de la Loi, 950, Butte des Moulins, not Boutet. Nicolas Noël Boutet (1761-1833) is one of the great names in the history of gunmaking. In 1792 the Committee of Public Safety established the Manufacture d' Armes de Versailles under the Administrator of the District and Boutet as technical controller. He is best known, not so much for the service arms, including swords, which he produced for the Directoire and the Empire, but for the highly finished and richly decorated fowling-pieces and pistols intended for presentation, of which a number are represented here. He had to struggle against financial and other difficulties throughout most of his career, and the Versailles factory never recovered from pillaging by Prussian troops in 1815, though Boutet continued in business in Paris until 1831. His work can often be dated by the form of the signature which he varied, see A1127-8, 1130-1, 1219-22.