Close-up of the Durs Egg shotgun's trigger and stockThis is a muzzle-loading, single-barrelled sporting shotgun dating to c. 1830. It has a fine damascened barrel and a lock-plate inscribed with a grouse-shooting scene and the name of the maker, Durs Egg. Swiss-born Egg was gunmaker to King George III and described as ‘one of the most extraordinary mechanics in England’. Egg died in 1831 aged 83 years and his company ceased gun manufacture around 1865.