INDIA, 18TH CENTURY

The ‘pistol-grip’ jade hilt is an unusual feature of these fine peshkabz-style daggers, which are more conventionally fitted with horn, ivory or rock crystal hilts of a form described by Salam Kaoukji as “slightly beaked” (Salam Kaoukji, Precious Indian Weapons, London, 2017, p. 255). A peshkabz with a grey-green jade hilt of this form is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (36.25.700a, b). The form of the hilt by the forte, which resembles that on the ‘slightly beaked’ hilt form, suggests that the present ‘pistol-grip’ hilt was nevertheless made for a peshkabz dagger.