Part2 rev PJT 3 Nov
3/11/07
2:32 pm
Page 146
23. A Fine and Extremely Rare Early Smallsword with finely carved ivory hilt, Sinhalese, circa 1680 The hilt comprising a pommel, quillon block with arms of the hilt and bilobate shell in finely carved and pierced ivory, all in high relief in the Baroque taste; the grip now covered in crimson velvet and wound with a strip of gold lace. The pommel carved in the round in one piece with a band of flowers, leaves and fruit between a lower collar of acanthus leaves and fruit and a pommel cap of acanthus leaves. The quillon block also carved in the round in one piece, the recurving quillons swelling towards their tips and carved with foliage, the arms of the hilt carved as dolphins naiant, the dolphins’ tails and the base of the quillons springing from collars of acanthus leaves either side of the quillon block which is carved on both sides with a depiction of the Rape of Ganymede below curling foliage. The bilobate shell carved and pierced in one piece to match, both inside and outside the hand and above and below, the edges formed by paired putti and small rodents flanking winged cherubs’ heads and the centres filled with scrolling foliage, fruit and flowers. Straight double-edged blade of flattened hexagonal section and with identical design on both sides; a five-inch ricasso with engraved panels of false damascening flanking an oval enclosing the word Muscau; three narrow fullers beyond the ricasso running almost to the point; retaining traces of gilding overall. Overall length: 36 in
Blade length: 29 1⁄2 in
Smallswords with hilts of the style of our magnificently carved example are rare, their hilts representing a stylistic ‘bridge’ between rapiers proper, of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and fully developed smallswords, with knucklebow guards, of the eighteenth century. Swords with hilts such as ours are often known as ‘transitional rapiers’ but in fact are far more similar to smallswords than to rapiers and in sword-play would have been held and wielded more as smallswords than as rapiers; they also have shorter blades than rapiers and so are more properly termed ‘smallswords’. The cruciform style of the hilt demonstrated on our example was popular in the middle years of the seventeenth century and took a number of forms, some being known to contemporaries as ‘scarf swords’ or to more recent collectors as ‘pillow swords’ – the terminology reflecting the fact that they were often suspended at the time from decorative fringed baldricks that resembled scarves or the idea that, having hilts that are essentially two-dimensional, they could have been kept beneath pillows for self-defence. However, few of that type of sword had, as ours does, ‘arms of the hilt’ incorporated into the hilt design and both this feature and the shell guard, in the case of our sword formed of two lobes or shells placed back-to-back, link our sword very definitely with its rapier ancestors and place it in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. While smallswords with hilts of the form of our sword are rare, they are generally encountered in a variety of metals, most usually steel or silver and suitably embellished. Hitherto, no example of a smallsword with hilt of this form has been encountered with the components of the hilt in ivory and while it is unwise to employ the often-misused adjective ‘unique’ in respect of any man-made object, there seems every reason to believe that our sword’s exquisitely carved ivory hilt is exceptionally rare: it may even be unique. Only two other ivory-hilted smallswords have been recorded: one is in the Musée de l’Armée, Paris (no. J.307) and the other is in a private collection