MUGHAL INDIA, 17TH CENTURY

For millennia the nomads of the eastern Eurasian steppe have armed themselves with daggers and swords fitted with animal-headed hilts (Salam Kaoukji, Precious Indian Weapons and Other Princely Accoutrements, London and New York: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2017. p. 187). It is this tradition that the Mughals of 17th century India, themselves of Mongolian and Turkic descent, drew upon in their creation of beautiful, naturalistically sculpted animal-headed hilts carved from Central Asian jade. Although the vast majority of animal-headed hilts are in the form of animals associated with life on the steppe, especially horses and sheep, this rare dagger hilt is in the form of a nilgai or ‘blue bull’, a species of antelope native to India, and represents the artistic apex of this ancient art form.

A smaller nilgai hilt in the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, is attributed to the middle of the 17th century and is particularly close to the present example (Kaoukji, op. cit., pp. 222-3). It shares with ours the form of the floral decoration at the base of the hilt. A comparable dagger with a jade hilt in the form of a nilgai was sold in these Rooms on 10 October 2000, lot 2014, and another at Sotheby’s London on 1 April 2009, lot 135.