Nicolas Noël BOUTET - LA MANUFACTURE de VERSAILLES (active since 1793), Officer's pistol, French, cap pistol, originally a rock pistol

Steel, walnut wood, engravings; barrel length 16 cm; overall length 30 cm;
France, 18th / 19th century.
Steel barrel, octagonal, walnut long bed, with fine checkered cut flask and head ending with foot in steel ferrule surrounded by pearl motif. Capishon lock, rearmed from a rocker, steel lock plate with signature: "Boutet / a Versailles". On the opposite side of the lock plate - a fitting with an antithetical pair of lions. Trigger-tongue guard with a long rear mustache and a decorative front one - decorated with floral engravings. Under the barrel - in the appropriate bushings - the original wooden bullet.
The gun with Boutet's signature - is probably in Poland for the first time in an auction sale.
Nicolas Boutet (1761-1833) was a French court gunsmith who was entrusted by decree in 1792 with the position of artistic - and general - director of the gun manufactory: "La Manufacture d'Armes de Versailles" ( both firearms and white weapons). The National Museum in Cracow has a pair of duel pistols, signed "Boutet à Versailles", in a case. Their provenance is interesting: in 1909 they were transferred to the Kraków Museum after the liquidation of the Pokucki Museum in Kolomyia, founded by Edmund Józef Justyn Count Starzeński (1845-1900) of the Lis coat of arms - on the 101st anniversary of the May 3 Constitution, active 1892-1901.