19TH CENTURY

Details

A GERMAN RAPIER, IN EARLY 17TH CENTURY STYLE
19th Century
With slender tapering blade struck with two small marks and stamped with the letters 'MN. MN. MN' within the fuller extending from the base of the ricasso on both sides (associated), blackened iron hilt minutely chiselled in high relief, partly pierced to create subjects in the round, comprising a pair of straight quillons of oval section swelling toward the tips, a pair of arms carrying a small outer-ring filled with a sprung-in plate, the latter punched and engraved with a pierced trellis pattern, two progressively larger rings up-turned above, the upper joined by a diagonal branch to the original mid-point of the knuckle-guard (now shortened), inner-guard of slender rounded bars developing into four branches joined to the arms, respectively at the middle and at the extremity, tall oval pommel with flattened button, and the grip bound with patterned wire, the pommel and the outer face of the guard finely decorated with complex close-set designs of small figural subjects, the pommel with a cavalry battle before the walls of a city and differing front and rear, the elements of the guard with scenes from The Passion of Christ, including Christ Falling on the road to Calvary, St. John and other figures in mourning at the foot of the Cross, the Entombment attended by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, the Resurrection, the enthroned figure of Christ in Majesty, all placed within multitudes of soldiers and angels, and also involving related figures at the quillon tips, one perhaps the prophet Zacharias, the inner and the secondary surfaces cut with panels of scrolling foliage and with stylised leaf ornaments, and with a further three figures cast into Hell, one perhaps Pilate.
42¼in (107.3cm) blade

Provenance

Hal Furmage, London, 1929

Exhibited

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Loan Exhibition of European Arms and Armour, New York, August 3 - Spetember 27, 1931, cat. no. 164.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

The hilt belongs to a highly distinctive group discussed by Norman under type 57 of his hilt classification and again in his commentary on the chiselled decoration of sword hilts. See A. V. B. Norman, The Rapier and Small-sword, 1460-1820, 1980, pp.128 and 370-371, plate 42.

Within this group the present hilt compares the most closely with A589, A619 and A620 in the Wallace Collection, and with VI /402 and VI /398 in the Historisches Museum, Dresden. A related example noteworthy for the closely comparable aspects of its detail is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1973. 27. 3).

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