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Firearm
Unknown - Enlarge image
Firearm
- Place of origin:
Lahore, Pakistan (made)
- Date:
19th century (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Forged crucible steel decorated with gold kuftkari and mounted on red wood with ivory and chased silver mounts
- Credit Line:
Transferred from the India Museum in 1879
- Museum number:
2593(IS)
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This matchlock musket has a watered steel barrel overlaid with gold. Its stock is of carved wood and ivory with engraved silver mounts. Probably dating from the early 19th century, it was acquired as being from Lahore by the Indian Museum at an unspecified date, and was transferred to the South Kensington Museum, later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum, in 1879. Lahore was a renowned centre of the production of arms and armour in the Mughal period, and this continued when Ranjit Singh was proclaimed the first Sikh Maharaja of the Panjab in Lahore in 1801, from where he ruled until his death in 1839.

