A 23-BORE LIÈGE FLINTLOCK FOWLING-PIECE BY STREIGNARD, SIGNED STRIGNAR, CIRCA 1700-10
the barrel formed in two stages with swamped muzzle, turned girdle and the fore-sight set within an engraved decorative frame, the rear section octagonal and profusely decorated with symmetrical arrangements of scrollwork patterns both engraved and chiselled in low relief, enclosing the maker's signature "Strignar", a religious allegorical figure and the maker's brass-lined stamp, AS, a coronet above, struck three times on the breech, and the barrel tang engraved en suite and also involving a demon mask, with rounded lock decorated at the rear with a chiselled demon mask crowned with scrolls and engraved with a further religious figure, perhaps St. Agatha the Martyr, engraved borders, the cock and the steel chiselled en suite with the barrel (the comb of the cock missing, the jaw screw associated), figured walnut full stock carved with a series of decorative raised mouldings over its rear half, including acanthus leaf ornament about the barrel tang ,elongated acanthus sprays trailing about the ramrod-pipe and the trigger-guard and the butt with further leafy mouldings carved about the base of the comb and over its underside, full gilt-brass mounts cast in low relief, the heel of the butt-plate decorated with a scrollwork pattern en suite with the barrel and inhabited by allegorical figures, with side-plate formed as a pierced scrollwork pattern involving a grotesque mask and a vacant oval, trigger-guard cast with monsters' head scrollwork and acanthus finials, four strongly shaped faceted baluster ramrod-pipes, the rearmost pipe and the escutcheon each involving a demon mask, and original wooden ramrod
106.2 cm; 41¾ in barrel

Neue Støckel records a P.Streignard working in Liège, circa 1720-40. The present gunmaker, A. Streignard, hitherto unrecorded, is almost certainly a member of the same family, his mark unrecorded also.