A wheel-lock small-bore rifle – A richly decorated firearm for the pleasures of the hunt

This small-bore rifle with a wheel lock was produced around 1650 and was intended for hunting fowl and smaller game animals. Such a gun was generally the work of two craftsmen: while one, the gunsmith proper, made the iron parts, the other was responsible for the stock and the inlay work, which followed a certain style of decoration. Like many seventeenth-century gunsmiths, the two craftsmen who made this rifle came from Teschen (nowadays Cieszyn in Poland). The German name for this kind of rifle, Tesching or Teschinke, is derived from the name of the town.