Victorian Scroll...is it a style

[Idaho Flint]

Rodger

On the H&H Royal scroll that you have shown, what is this called? I am not sure what it is, and how it fits. Looks interesting, but a little out of place to me.


Mike

 

[Roger Bleile]

Mike,

If you look at the area above the part you pictured, where it reads "Royal Hammerless Ejector", you will see that it looks like a sort of parchment scroll. I believe the part you pointed out continues that theme. Below I have posted an image of another Royal double rifle made in 1921 (previously owned by Elmer Keith). You will notice the same design aspects because it was a part of a standard pattern.

Perhaps, Phil Coggan can expand on this somewhat.

 

[Phil Coggan]

Roger is correct, the named areas of the gun are stylized parchment scrolls, the theme is carried on to other parts of the design, it's a way of making things look more interesting, in fact nearly all scroll work is stylized to a certain extent and usually based on foliage.

Every now and then, engravers would get (and probably still do) a memo saying that the named area for example, was getting too big, too low etc and it needed to be corrected back to the original proportions, this is easily done when the design is copied over and over.

Phil

 

[D Smith]

Please excuse my ignorance. I have a question about Phil's post of the pictures of the two double rifles. The one that says Professional elephant hunter. Do you think the background around the outside of the scrolls was cut with a liner graver?

Thanks D

 

[Phil Coggan]

It was cut line by line, one at a time, not a liner graver.

Phil

 

[Idaho Flint]

Thanks for the post and reply to my question. This has been a great learning thread, and I really appreciate it.

Mike

 

[Barry Lee Hands]

Just for kicks, here is my version of Holland scroll:

 

[D Smith]

Thank you Phil. It's going to take me some time to practice that one and try to make it look right.

D

 

[Phil Coggan]

Re: Roger's pictures of early Royal scroll, one has to bare in mind that these guns were done for a price and with a very fast turn around, hence the quality...or lack of it.

Phil

 

[Martin Strolz]

Phil, you are right. Christopher Austin describes that in his book Gun Engraving. ISBN 1-57157-124-8
I also had to do quite a few rifles in this or a similar style.
On top there is a pull I took from a 1921 Royal Hammerless H&H. This was back in 1984 while I worked in Ferlach. It was very interesting for me seeing British rifles and shotguns tough! One has to consider the lack of books and other information sources. So I always took prints and used the best of these as a model for my own engravings. The second pull is from a double rifle which I have engraved right after seeing the H&H in 1984. The bottom side is 36mm wide. The third pull is from an engraving I did maybe a decade later. Here the underside is 33mm wide. In this case the scrollwork is pretty small, but suiting the elegant break action rifle.

 

[GTJC460]

This has certainly been an interesting discussion. Thank you to those who have contributed.

@Martin Strolz.... I would be interested in learning your method/reasoning for the formation of scroll which I've cropped the photo. By no means am I criticizing the work, I'm interested in understanding.

 

[Martin Strolz]

I just connected two scrolls.
The "flow" is maintained - the second scroll optically departs from the inner part of the first one following the red line. So you see that I could also have done this and use a normal inner leaf instead of the connection.
The blue line tells you that the connection could be seen as a "starter" for the inner part of the frist scroll. An element that is not needed here, but the connection is in correct CW - CCW sense.

 

[GTJC460]

I just connected two scrolls.
The "flow" is maintained - the second scroll optically departs from the inner part of the first one following the red line. So you see that I could also have done this and use a normal inner leaf instead of the connection.
The blue line tells you that the connection could be seen as a "starter" for the inner part of the frist scroll. An element that is not needed here, but the connection is in correct in CW - CCW sense.

View attachment 35556

View attachment 35555

Thank you Martin for explaining and sharing your expertise

 

[Eugene Carkoski]

it also produces a nice letter E