A RARE SWORD-STICK with long rapier blade of flattened hexagonal section with narrow central fuller on each face of the forte stamped respectively 'Sebastian' and 'Hernandez', the ricasso struck on each face with the Toledo mark, the elongated spool-shaped turned bone handle (cap missing) encircled by an engraved frieze comprising oval cartouches alternately framing profile laurel-crowned Classical heads and linked by bars between stylised leaves, the engraving blackened, tapering wooden stick, forming the scabbard, of circular section with bone mouth locket engraved en suite with the handle, but with lion masks instead of heads, the remainder encircled at wide intervals by pewter and staghorn fillets, the spaces between inlaid with staghorn scrollwork carrying engraved mother-of-pearl and staghorn leaves, the latter stained green, and mother-of-pearl flowers partly issuing from vases and involving masks, grotesques and a profile laurel-crowned Classical head all in engraved mother-of-pearl (slightly shortened, several sections of wood and some inlay missing), and later long iron ferrule, early 17th Century47in.

A RARE SWORD-STICK with long rapier blade of flattened hexagonal section with narrow central fuller on each face of the forte stamped respectively 'Sebastian' and 'Hernandez', the ricasso struck on each face with the Toledo mark, the elongated spool-shaped turned bone handle (cap missing) encircled by an engraved frieze comprising oval cartouches alternately framing profile laurel-crowned Classical heads and linked by bars between stylised leaves, the engraving blackened, tapering wooden stick, forming the scabbard, of circular section with bone mouth locket engraved en suite with the handle, but with lion masks instead of heads, the remainder encircled at wide intervals by pewter and staghorn fillets, the spaces between inlaid with staghorn scrollwork carrying engraved mother-of-pearl and staghorn leaves, the latter stained green, and mother-of-pearl flowers partly issuing from vases and involving masks, grotesques and a profile laurel-crowned Classical head all in engraved mother-of-pearl (slightly shortened, several sections of wood and some inlay missing), and later long iron ferrule, early 17th Century 47in.

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Lot Essay

Two similar inlaid sword-sticks of identical design are recorded, one sold by Sotheby's on 17 November, 1981, lot 106, and the other amongst the regalia of the Mayor of Stratford-upon-Avon. The inlay varies on the three, but it probably relates to that on the stocks of a well-known group of early 17th Century Dutch or English matchlock muskets, discussed, for example, by Guy Wilson in connection with an example in the Tradescant Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which bears similar Classical heads

See A. Macgregor (ed.), Tradescant's Rarities, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1983, cat. no.87; also C. Blair, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor. Arms, Armour and Base-Metalwork, p.244

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