Mistaken Identity?

[cannonmn]

Here's an auction writeup I think is mistaken.  I think the cannon shown is Spanish, not Portuguese as stated.
 
http://www.thomasdelmar.com/Catalogues/as071211/lot0303.html
 
There wasn't quite enough info there to tell so I asked for more and got these pix; passwod to view them is "attack."
 
http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/Forums60/Spanish%20mountain%20gun/?albumview=slideshow#/grid
 
Whatever nationality, this piece is a mountain gun, and not any kind of howitzer because it isn't chambered.  On the outside this gun is a dead-ringer, down to some small details,  for the more numerous Spanish Naval "Obus de a 3" (3-pounder howitzer) of the late 18th C.  But it has no chamber and the similar-looking Spanish Navy weapons I've seen were all chambered.  Similar Spanish Army weapons lacked chambers, but I haven't yet found a description of this gun in any of the old or new books on Spanish artillery.
 
On the markings, note how the "9" in the "379" appears to have been added later, since it looks different and throws the 3-digit number off center.  The "37" is centered.
 
I am not sure the digits on the upper muzzle face aren't two different numbers, 20 and 3.  The catalog writer thought it should be read as "203."

 

[Artilleryman]

A very nice looking piece. 

[brass cannon]

That gun has been very nicely decorated apparently by the guy that captured it in 1813.  There are 3 originals of that model 1781 (?) Spanish 4pndr howitzer at West Point and there is an original and a copy I made at the Mormon Battalion Visitor Center in San Diego.  One of the guns at West Point has the crest of Carlos 4 of Spain and the gun in San Diego has the almost lost but identifiable  remains of the crest of Carlos 3.  The crest are jut forward of the touch hole/vent

[cannonmn]

Thanks.  As far as what craftsman decorated it, we'll probably never know, but the work was ordered by the Master General of Ordnance (Mulgrave?) so the cannon could be presented to the officer's father, also an officer in the RHA.  The officer who used this previously-captured piece at the Battle if Nieville (sp?) in 1813 was Lt. William Livingston Robe, RHA, who was killed at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.  The cannon is essentially a memorial to him.
 
There's been extensive discussion of this piece on the "Napoleon Series" forum, trying to find the exact specs mentioned in the text of one old manual or another.  I've been following those topics and as far as I can tell, nothing even close has been found in the old Portuguese museum catalogs, and nothing much like it was produced in France before 1813.  There was one French mountain gun included in the "System XI" but Napoleon I suppressed it before 1810, so I don't know what it looked like nor how many were cast, nor if any remained after that model was suppressed.
 
So every indication I have is that this was indeed a Spanish gun (it has no chamber.)  It is very close externally to the Spanish Navy's 3-pounder howitzer, which of course had a chamber.  From all of the old literature we can find, the chambered pieces, both 3 and 4 pounder, were all originally cast to Spanish Navy drawings.  We've found Spanish Army drawings and specs for unchambered 4-pounder mountain guns with the same basic exterior form as the Navy pieces, but we have yet to find Spanish army drawings or specifications for an unchambered 3-pounder gun of this form.
 
Why do we want to find the specs and drawings when we have photos, measurements etc, on the 3-pounder unchambered "trophy gun" already?  It would be nice to know the exact name the Spanish used for it at the time.  When that is discovered, anyone can then search Google Books using the proper terminology and probably find out a lot more about them.
 
More research is required.