OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 17TH CENTURY

During the Ottoman period, luxuriously-decorated maces served as markers of station more than as weapons of war. The relatively light weight of the present mace combined with its fine silver-gilt decoration mark it out as such a prestige item to be carried by a dedicated mace-bearer for an Ottoman dignitary. The present mace finds its closest comparison in a mace now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (C 177). It shares with that mace the entirely silver-gilt surface and the spiral square grid as the main decorative motif, although the floral decoration on that mace is simpler and on a smaller scale.