Saber (kilij) with a rare gold-encrusted guard later enhance - Lot 455

Lot n° 455
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Estimation :
6000 - 8000 EUR
Saber (kilij) with a rare gold-encrusted guard later enhance - Lot 455
Saber (kilij) with a rare gold-encrusted guard later enhanced with vermeil, walrus ivory spindle. Safavid Iran or Ottoman Turkey, circa 1500 and 19th century. L. 94 cm - Blade length 82 cm A sabre (kilij) with rare guard inlaid with gold and later silver-gilt and walrus ivory grip Safavid Iran or Ottoman Turkey, ca. 1500 and 19th century L. 37 in - L. of the blade 32 1/4 in 320 CH The steel blade is set in a gold-inlaid iron guard, which can be dated to around 1500. The walrus ivory spindle is a later substitution, probably from the 19th century, although it is likely to have replaced a pommel of very similar shape. The center of the guard is inlaid with a double-symmetrical cloud motif, cast in gold on a dark background, accompanied by a simple floral motif. The arms of the hilt are decorated with a rumi motif cast in blackened steel on a textured gold ground, and four cartouches containing two Persian distichs. The finely inlaid sword hilt is a rare example of a characteristic post-Timurid style of gold inlay, which was popular in northwest Iran and eastern Anatolia around the beginning of the 16th century. In terms of the quality of its inlay, its closest comparison is with a belt preserved in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum, said to have been worn by Shah Isma'il I. Like many early Turkmen and Safavid weapons and armor, this belt was looted following the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, about which the historian Bidlisi wrote that "the donkeys carried gold and treasures, which filled the treasury. Clothes, armor and helmets were all looted. The poor of Chaldiran became rich" (Bidlisi, Selimnama, p. 180). The ends of the guard bear two Persian couplets. Although the inscription is largely illegible due to wear, the words "gorge" (gulu) and "eau" (ab) can be deciphered. Bladed weapons from this period are frequently adorned with martial poems that invoke these words, alongside terms such as "dagger", "sword" or "blade". (cf. Stuart Pyhrr et al., Islamic Arms and Armor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2015. pp. 196-197, no. 76). Such was their popularity that the mid-sixteenth-century poet 16th-century poet Wasifi (b. 1485) relates an anecdote to the effect that the scholars gathered in Herat could scarcely believe that an original verse could be composed using the words "water" and "blade".
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