Peter Finer ANTIQUE ARMS AND ARMOUR A GERMAN SABRE, SAXON, circa 1590 Stock No. 2089 Overall length: 124.5 cm / 49 in Blade length: 102 cm / 40.2 in The fire-gilt hilt is formed of a copper-alloy pommel cast and chased in relief as a lion’s head and surmounted by a moulded conical buon. The guards are of iron, variously of hexagonal and half-hexagonal secon, comprising vercally re-curved quillons, the front one forming a sigmoidal paral knuckle-guard. Each terminates in a copper-alloy lions’ heads en suite with the pommel. Below this, a pair of semi-circular arms is linked at the outside of their upper and lower ends respecvely by a large and a small oval side ring. Each side ring is inlaid at its centre in a circular recess, enclosed at either side by a moulded constricon, with a decorave gilt copper-alloy plaque formed in the case of the upper ring as a lion’s mask. Three inner loop guards diverge from the base of the knuckle-guard to the lower ends of the arms, and a curved wooden grip is overlain between three equi-spaced ferrules of copper-alloy with freEed and engraved panels of the same material, depicng within a framework of scrolls various scenes involving male and female figures in contemporary armour and dress. The long curved single-edged blade is formed with a ricasso and, at its back edge and p respecvely, two narrow fullers and a long false edge. It is finely decorated at the forte with etched and partly gilt foliate scrolls and strap-work on a blackened and sppled ground, involving at each side a crowned double-headed eagle beneath a crown above a shield charged with a lion on the front and a rampant bear on the reverse. The successful invasion of much of central Europe by the Ooman Turkish troops of Suleiman the Magnificent in the early 16th century, and in parcular their arrival in force at the gates of Vienna in 1529, prompted in those tasked with halng their advance not only alarm and consternaon but also a very real measure of admiraon. There was no denying the visual splendour of the Turks, nor the courage with which they fought. More impressive than that, however, was the success of their light cavalry against European forces sll dependent to a large extent on a core body of heavily armoured lancers. The lessons learnt from those encounters did not go unheeded. By the mid-16th century, light cavalry had come to make up a significant component of most European armies and even, on occasion, took to arming themselves in the Turkish fashion. In the German lands the Zischägge, a straight copy of the open-faced Turkish çiçak, gradually become their headpiece of choice. Similarly, the curved, single-edged sabre, inspired by the arms of their Turkish adversaries, would in me become the universal sidearm of the cavalryman. At the me that our impressive sword was produced, however, the sabre was sll something of a novelty: one that a nobleman might well wear simply for ceremonial purposes as an exoc accessory. The word ‘sabre’ appears to have had its origins in the Hungarian–Slavic region of Eastern Europe where the use of the curved, single edged sword, introduced there by nomadic invaders from Central Asia and variously known as the szablya, sablya or szabla, went back to the 9th century. The form of sabre carried by the Ooman Turkish invaders of central Europe in the 16th century shared the Central Asian ancestry of the laEer, but was called the kilij: a name loosely translang as ‘instrument of slaughter’. A western European representaon of a sabre of kilij-like form appears as early as 1528–32 in a design prepared by the Swiss arst Hans Holbein the Younger for the decoraon of the house of a sword cutler. Although the inspiraon for the form of the Western European sabre may have come from the East, that for its decoraon would generally have come from closer to home. The delighully freEed and engraved panels adorning the hilt of our example clearly tell a story. Social tales with a moral message, typically delivered as short amusing narraves and frequently touching upon eroc subjects involving, as in this instance, marriage, are known in German medieval literature as Maeren. One of the most celebrated authors of such tales was the German Franciscan friar and humorist Johannes Pauli (about 1445–1535) whose most successful work, Schimpf und Ernst, appeared in printed form in 1522, 1545, 1550 and many mes thereaeer. The story told by the decorave panels of our sword begins with a strung young soldier embarking on his premeditated route to domesc bliss. He entreats the obviously wealthy Bürger for the hand of his daughter, and with it the dowry which will clearly accompany her. The beauful daughter, piously dressed as a noviate in the course of receiving a convent educaon, is instructed by a priest or monk. In the next panel a lapse of me is indicated by the growth of the gallant’s moustache. He woos the maiden and she, in return, indicates her acceptance of him by presenng him with a myrtle flower, symbolising love and marriage. In the final panel we see the couple in blissful maturity. The soldier, now sporng a fully developed moustache, appears to have seled into the comfort of the presgious but safe appointment of officer of the city watch, thanks to the social standing of his wife’s family. She demonstrates her fidelity by accompanying her husband on his rounds, holding the lantern and, perhaps somewhat more tellingly, the staff of his halberd. The scene in which the young maiden presents her suitor with a myrtle flower appears also in engravings reproduced in the Ansicht von Hamburg by Daniel Frese, 1587, the Kostümwerk by Bertelli, 1594, and the Ansicht von Hamburg by Pieter van der Doort, 1595. The costume worn by the figures decorang the grip of our sabre closely resembles in style that depicted in these engravings and is typical of the fashions favoured in Germany in the laEer part of the 16th century. Providing further evidence of the date of our sabre is the construcon of its hilt. The three diagonal bars that make up its inner guards are of a form unrecorded before 1562 when they appear in the portrait of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire. They appear again soon aeerwards on a dated sword of 1567 in the Real Armerià, Madrid (no. g.54), and another of 1570 in the Musée de l’Armée, Paris (no. j.126), but are uncommon before the following decade. While the lion’s head pommel and matching quillon ends of our sabre might be seen as inving comparison with the corresponding elements of the so-called Schweizersäbel or Swiss sabre of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, differences both in its decoraon and in the configuraon of its guards suggest that our somewhat finer sabre may have emanated from a different and rather more disnguished school. The double-headed eagle that forms the central mof of the etched decoraon of its blade must inevitably raise the possibility that the sword as a whole had its origins in Germany. Significantly, perhaps, the overall design of its hilt accords closely with that idenfied by the late A. V. B. Norman as his type 45 and dated by him to the period 1590–1620. Chief among representaves of this type of hilt are a numbered series emanang from the Saxon Electoral collecons at Dresden, examples of which are now, or were at one me, to be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (no. m.2790–1931), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (von Kienbusch no. 369), and the former collecons of Schloss Wartburg, Thuringia (no. 873). Each bears at the ends of its arms the inials of the disnguished Dresden sword cutler Anton Schuch or Schuech. Although the earliest records of him, dang from the period 1582–7, come from the archives at Munich, he must very soon aeerwards have moved to Dresden where menon of him is made as early as 1590 and 1591. A parcularly elaborate version of the kind of hilt under discussion is the splendid enamelled silver example in the Rüstkammer, Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden (no. vi.433). The resemblance of the hilt of our sabre to these and other related swords from Dresden is surely more than mere coincidence and raises the very real probability that it too is a product of the same exalted school of sword cutlers. Provenance: Private collecon, Germany Peter Finer ANTIQUE ARMS AND ARMOUR 38-39 Duke Street, St James's, London, SW1Y 6DF, United Kingdom. T: +44 (0) 20 7839 5666 F: +44 (0) 20 7839 5777 USA/CAN: 1 800 270 7951 www.peterfiner.com .