Antonio Joze de Freitas
Smoothbore two stage barrel, with rings and gilded leaves at the girdle; the base has two "ANT.O JOZE DE FREITAS" golden lined stamps among golden decorations and surmounted by a cross, the inscription "FABRICA IMPERIAL DA CONCEIÇÃO DO RIO DE JANEIRO ANNO DE 1823" along the octagonal portion; foresight surrounded by golden leaves; 16 mm cal.; tang with rearsight decorated en suite; fine stock with the same stamps, fretwork, engraved and gilded with floral and geometrical motifs, the square batterie, marked "ANTONIO JOZE DE FREITAS - R.° D. JAN° 1823"; elegant reddish wooden stock, finely fretwork around the tang and ribbed at the stock; trigger guard engraved with Brazil's arms, underneath a crown among floral motifs, acorn-shaped tip with golden decorations that are also on the guard with monogram "P1J" underneath the imperial crown, inventory number "N 8" between two screws decorated with roses; two engraved barrel brackets, bone-tipped wooden ramrod with iron cartridge extractor.
Exceptional gun of extraordinary historical importance belonging to the period when Peter was Emperor. Born in the Royal Palace of Queluz in 1798, where he will die in 1834, he becomes the first Emperor of Brazil in the year 1822: Brazil, which was a territory controlled by the Portuguese Crown, became an official Portuguese colony (1500-1816) and finally Indipendent Empire of Brazil from 1822 to 1889. Antonio Jose de Freitas was a gunmaker working for Portugal's court, documented in Lisbon since 1788, he was one of the court gunmakers that went to Brazil with the Portuguese court because of Napoleon's invasion. In Rio de Janeiro he became master of FABRICA da CONCEIÇÃO, the renamed ARSENAL REAL DOI EXÉRCITO, and then FABRICA IMPERIAL DA CONCEIÇÃO DO RIO DE JANEIRO.
