Feature & Exhibit Detail

The “Arms of Distinction” gallery offers the Frazier Museum an opportunity to present materials that are exceptionally noteworthy by their historical provenance, workmanship, or artistic importance.

One such item is this set of percussion pistols by the gunsmith John Donaghy of Amsterdam. Only a few examples of Donaghy’s work are known, and these exhibit the same high quality of manufacture and decoration. While weapons of this general form and type are often called dueling pistols, there is no reason to think that they could not also have been used as very high quality target pistols.

According to a family tradition, the pistols were ordered from Donaghy in about 1822. However, their features indicate a date probably in the 1840s and 50s. It has been said that the pistols belonged to a member of a prestigious Dutch family, and if so, the set could have been received as a very handsome wedding present from a new bride to her husband, or from his new father-in-law.