A rare and important Ottoman sabre and scabbard with silver-gilt mounts set with turquoise and gold-inlaid jade panels, Turkey, first half 17th century

the curved steel blade, fullered and double-edged at the tip and stamped on one face at the forte, the hilt decorated with silver-gilt mounts chased and engraved with stylised floral motifs and set with turquoise and jade plaques, the quillons with bud finials, the red velvet-covered wooden scabbard with silver-gilt lock and chape and further mounts decorated ensuite to the hilt with elaborate and large jade plaques bordered with turquoise, two suspension loops

in overall good condition, some scratches to the blade, all stones and jade intact, as viewed.
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This impressive Ottoman sabre, with its sumptuous silver-gilt hilt and scabbard, would have been made and used for ceremonial purposes and/or as a diplomatic gift, displaying and signalling the magnificence and wealth of the Ottoman Empire. Its appearance on the market is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a private collector or public institution to acquire a work of rarity and museum-quality importance.

Similar examples can be found in a number of museums and collections, including two in the Wawel State Collections of Art, Krakow, Poland and another two in the Sate Art Collections at Wawel Castle in Krakow from the Treasury of the Jasna Góra at Częstochowa (illustrated in Żygulski 1984, p.115, no.113 a&b and p.116, no.114 a&b).

The ornamental use of jade plaques and turquoise insets on the present sword can be compared with the workmanship on other arms and armour regalia. One such example, slightly earlier than the present example, is a fine sword dated to the period of Murad III (r.1574–95) and currently in the Furusiyya Art Foundation (illustrated in Mohammed 2007, p.67, no.31).

Examples of accoutrements of related design are two saddles, one from the Czartoryski Collection in the National Museum, Krakow (inv. no. 5558) and the other in the State Art Collection at Wawel (inv. no. 4722). Most probably of Ottoman Imperial manufacture, these were decorated with alternating stones and jade plaques overlaid with gold cut-out designs on an engraved silver-gilt mount, and would also have served as impressive props during Imperial ceremonies (Żygulski 1984, pp.110-11, no.109). Of these two examples, the saddle from the Sate Art Collection at Wawel tells a particularly interesting story: it is said to come originally from Sultan Mustafa II (r.1695–1703) and offered to the Polish envoy Stanislaw Malachowski on the occasion of the conclusion of the peace treaty in Karlowitz in 1699 (ibid, p.109, no.107).

It is through such diplomatic gifts that commercial and political relations between the Ottoman Empire and its neighbours grew and explains the profusion of Ottoman precious gifts in European collections such as those in the State Art Collection at Wawel in Poland. The Russian Empire also traded extensively with the Ottomans and many ambassadorial delegations travelled between the two Empires and carried with them extensive gifts showing off the wealth and power of their respective realms.

The Moscow Kremlin Museum Armoury holds superb examples of Turkish weapons of the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, notably a sword and scabbard with similar lobed mounts decorated with jade plaques and turquoise insets (inv. no. Or-4428 and illustrated in Paris 2003, p.158, no.115). Before entering the Kremlin collections in 1810, this sword was originally kept in the treasury of the palace in St Petersburg, where it possibly arrived as a diplomatic gift or even as a trophy of war. Even though such an item appears almost too fine to hold practical purposes, it is noted that in fact such ceremonial swords were also functional as edged weapons owing to the excellent quality of the materials used and fine craftsmanship (ibid, p.158).

An Ottoman miniature (Fig. 1) now in the Topkapi Palace Museum (inv. no. H2169, fol.13a), and attributed to Ahmed Nakşi, circa 1620, shows a portrait of Sultan Genç Osman on horseback (illustrated in Tuzcan 2006, p.55, no. 27). The horse is adorned with gold and colourful gem-set accessories resembling those described in Krakow and Wawel, and the rider, Sultan Genç Osman, is featured with a long sword and scabbard with gilded and gem-set polylobed mounts similar to those of the present example. This contemporary miniature documents not only the way in which such items would have been worn, but also the grandness of appearance which they conveyed.

More recently, the nineteenth-century Polish artist and friend of the famous Orientalist artist Jean-Léon Gérome, Stanislaw Chlebowski (1835-1884) depicted a couple of details of a similar sabre in his study after a painting of the entrance into Constantinople of Sultan Mehmed II (now in the National Museum in Warsaw, MNK inv. No. II-A-81).  

bibliography

Żygulski, Z., Ottoman Art in the Service of the Empire, New York University Press, New York, 1992

Żygulski, Z., Stara Broń W Polskich Zbiorach, Wydanie II Poprawione, Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, Warsaw, 1984

Mironov., O., and E. Tikhomirov, Ornamental weapons and horse accoutrements of the 17th and 18th centuries, State Museums of the Moscow Kremlin, MA Fine Art, Moscow, 1986

Digard, J-P. ed., Chevaux et cavaliers arabes dans les arts d'Orient et d'Occident, exhibition catalogue, Institut du monde arabe, Paris, 2003

Tuzcan, H., Children of the Ottoman Seraglio: Customs and costumes of the princes and princesses, Istanbul 2006