Remarkable arsenal model, a very high quality production of a prototype gun signed BATH in 1841, consisting of the bronze tube on a carriage with hooped wheels, engraved "BATH INVENIT & FECIT PARIS 1841", the forecarriage and the ammunition box, made of wood, brass and iron. The details are finely reproduced. Dimensions: barrel: 94 cm, tube: 49 cm, case: 42 cm. TBE This breech-loading prototype marks an important stage in the evolution of artillery. The first modern breech-loading rifled gun was invented in 1837 by Martin von Wahrendorff, with a cylindrical breech block locked by a horizontal wedge. In the 1850s and 1860s, Whitworth and Armstrong developed improved breech-loading artillery guns, and this example by BATH is typical of this period, with the breech locked by a "bayonet" system.