Artists of the Collection
Salvador de Zenarro
documented 1761–1793 Madrid
Royal gunmaker to the Spanish court and one of the great names of the eighteenth-century Madrid school: a native of Basque Barrinaga, trained in Madrid under Joaquín de Celaya, he was named honorary royal gunmaker by Charles III in 1761 and full royal gunmaker a year later. The king prized his art so highly that he asked Zenarro, together with Miguel de Cegarra, to build an arquebus in his presence and before the royal princes.
He trained four successors and signed his weapons on the lock, breech and trigger guard; he died on 31 July 1793, and his marking tools had to be returned by his widow to the Real Armería in the Royal Palace of Madrid, where the works of the Madrid masters are kept to this day. Our hunting arquebus with its miquelet lock is a rare document of this court tradition.
