拍品專文
A hilt with a comparable terminal sold at Bonhams, London, 11 October 2000, lot 674. That hilt was not as detailed as the present lot and it did not have the inset features. The present hilt has a remarkable finesse of detail, unusually for Indian carved jade playing with the surface texture more than normal. Similar carved fine feathered detailing to that in the feathers here can be found in the modelling of the wool of a camel's head on a dagger hilt in a private collection (Skelton, Robert et al.: Court Life and the Arts under Mughal Rule, exhibition catalogue, London, 1982, no.363, pp.120-1). Both that and the present piece show an artist who had both technical virtuosity and a sense of humour. The camel's tongue is licking its lower jaw.