Lot 112
112
A GERMAN ROYAL HUNTING KNIFE, the stout single-edged blade (cut down from a hunting sword blade) back-edged towards the point and with ricasso damascened in gold one face with the initial F under an Electoral bonnet, over the stamped signature 'Mvnier', and on the other with a septre within the Garter of the Order of the Garter, etched on the back an inventory number, a crowned V over 12, short brass quillons (perhaps later) with rounded central block, ivory handle of oval section finely carved with foliage involving hounds attacking on one side a boar and on the other a stag, the collars of three of the hounds carved respectively with the initials and date CW, W and 1699, separated by a file-roped gilt-brass plate with front ring, from an ivory pommel-cap carved with a nymph and faun, a dog and a grotesque-head all amid foliage, and gilt-brass button, Berlin, dated 1699

Details
A GERMAN ROYAL HUNTING KNIFE, the stout single-edged blade (cut down from a hunting sword blade) back-edged towards the point and with ricasso damascened in gold one face with the initial F under an Electoral bonnet, over the stamped signature 'Mvnier', and on the other with a septre within the Garter of the Order of the Garter, etched on the back an inventory number, a crowned V over 12, short brass quillons (perhaps later) with rounded central block, ivory handle of oval section finely carved with foliage involving hounds attacking on one side a boar and on the other a stag, the collars of three of the hounds carved respectively with the initials and date CW, W and 1699, separated by a file-roped gilt-brass plate with front ring, from an ivory pommel-cap carved with a nymph and faun, a dog and a grotesque-head all amid foliage, and gilt-brass button, Berlin, dated 1699
11½in.
Literature
Stuart Pyhrr, 'The Elector of Brandenburg's Hunting Sword', Metropolitan Museum Journal, 23 (1988), pp.193-99; Barocker Luxus, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich, 1988-9, pp.238-9

Lot Essay

The initial and devices on the ricasso refer to Friedrich III (d.1713), Prince Elector of Brandenburg from 1688 to 1701 when he became King of Prussia. The maker of the blade, Jaques Munier was court gunmaker (Hofbüchsenmacher) to Friedrich and his father and is last recorded in 1702/3. The initials CW, of the unidentified ivory-carver occur on a snuff-box (also dated 1699) in the Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna (Inv. No.4473), which may have been intended originally to go with the sword from which the present knife was made

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