TURKEY, PERIOD OF SULTAN MAHMUD I, 1730-1754 AD

Details

AN OTTOMAN DAGGER AND SHEATH
TURKEY, PERIOD OF SULTAN MAHMUD I, 1730-1754 AD
The double-edged curving tapering watered steel blade with pronounced medial ridge and four decorative silver stars on each side, both sides of the waisted agate hilt held together with three pins, the central one on one side decorated with a gilt floral rosette, the centre with green enamel, around the edge of the hilt a band of gold lattice design, the interstices filled with palmettes, the sheath with large silver mounts engraved with meandering floral vine, one panel with belt loop attachment, both silver mounts with the tughra of Mahmud I, silver slightly tarnished
15 1/8in. (38.5cm.) long

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Lot Essay

The form of the hilt of this dagger is attested in a small number of other examples. A dagger in a German collection has a finely reeded dark nephrite hilt of similar form but with silver mounts above and below, together with a very similarly mounted sheath (Oriental Splendour, exhibition catalogue, Hamburg, 1993, no.143, pp.202-3), and an example in the British Museum has a green jade hilt with gold inlay similar to that seen in lot 114 in this sale (J. M. Rogers, Islamic Art and Design 1500-1700, London 1983, no.207, p.156 - catalogued as Indian). A number of daggers with similarly plain hardstone hilts, albeit of different form, are known, for example in Karlsruhe (Ernst Petrasch, Reinhard Sänger, Eva Zimmermannn and Hans Georg Majer, Die Karlsruher Türkenbeute, Munich, 1991, no.143, p.197). Another, with agate hilt and blade almost identical to ours, is in Copenhagen (Islamic Arms and Armour from Danish Private Collections, Copenhagen, 1982, no.9, pp.56-7).

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