Grandmaster’s flintlock sells for €35,000 at auction - May 4, 2014
An elegantly carved flintlock gun which purportedly belonged to one of Malta’s most beloved Grand Masters, Emanuel de Rohan, went under the hammer for €35,000 at an Italian auction house in Genoa. The San Giorgio Auction House gave the 1776 musket a...
An elegantly carved flintlock gun which purportedly belonged to one of Malta’s most beloved Grand Masters, Emanuel de Rohan, went under the hammer for €35,000 at an Italian auction house in Genoa.
The San Giorgio Auction House gave the 1776 musket a pre-sale estimate of between €15,000 and €18,000. Heritage Malta was also bidding for the gun but lost out to the steep price tag offered by other bidders.
The gun, which is 131cm long, is carved and signed with the words Nicola a Malta, the probable Neapolitan gunsmith.
De Rohan succeeded the unpopular Francisco Ximenes de Texada in 1775 and died in 1797. He was a French aristocrat and did his best to revive the principles and the tenets of the Order which were in fast decline.