A VERY FINE FLINTLOCK GUN (KARIOPHILI)

A flintlock gun with almost identical decoration, with a stock decorated with confronted lions and a floral vase, is in the National Historical Museum, Athens (inv.no.2939). It belonged to the Souliot figure Nikolaos (b. circa 1796), the son of Photos Tzavellas. Photos Tzavellas fought against Ali Pasha of Ioannina (d. 1822) and is said to have been poisoned by his agents (Hirst and Sammon (ed.), 2014, p.122). Souliots were an Orthodox community originally from Souli in Epirus who relocated to Corfu in the early parts of the 19th century. They served various powers from the Ottoman Sultan to Ali Pasha, the French, the Italians and the British. The finely executed decoration of our gun suggests that it belonged to an important Greek figure of the early 19th century (Elgood, 2009, cat.305, p.243).