Existential sentences are preserved under extensions: witnesses remain present and quantifier-free truth is unchanged by an embedding. Therefore any existential axiomatization implies the specified extension-closure property.
For existential axiomatization from extension closure, let be all existential consequences of , and suppose . We claim that is satisfiable. Otherwise compactness supplies finitely many universal sentences true in such that . The finite conjunction is universal after renaming bound variables, so its negation is existential. It belongs to but is false in , a contradiction.
The preceding universal-theory embedding result now yields and with . By the assumed extension closure, ; elementary equivalence implies . Thus axiomatizes exactly the models of , proving existential axiomatizability is equivalent to closure under extensions. This includes the inconsistent case, whose empty model class is axiomatized by an existential contradiction.