The Children’s Rifle
This small piston-operated rifle probably dates from the early 19th century. It features an interesting stock carved with the head of a bearded Indian wearing a feather headdress. The two eyes are inlaid and the upper part stands out against a diamond-shaped background. A flower, inscribed in a circle, is also engraved on one side of the stock. A ring indicates the presence of a leather strap, now missing. The locks are engraved with foliage motifs[1] and each bears the initials E.D.
Decorated in this way, the object evokes the wild, untouched territories of North America, traversed by coureurs des bois in the days of the French-English conflict, but also echoes the tales of François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) and James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851).
- Wood type: cherry
- Length: 86.5 cm
- Provenance: de Saizieu family
[1]. Ornamental motif in the form of a bent branch embellished with leaves.
Hunting in Flaugergues
Built at the end of the 17th century, Château de Flaugergues was conceived as a country residence, allowing its owners to benefit from healthy air, greenery and space, which the family mansion on rue de la Loge offered only inadequately.
A privilege of the nobility under the Ancien Régime, hunting was at once a sport, a form of recreation and a social marker.
Hunting is also a way of communing with nature, and in this case, for a child, through the figure of the Indian, a call to dream and discover faraway lands.
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