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Description: | Artist: Unknown; Date(s): circa 1635 - 1650; Classification(s): weapons, rapier, casting (process), sword, cast with chiselled decoration and a spirally-fluted grip; Acquisition: bequeathed by Henderson, James Stewart, 1933-03-16 [HEN.M.237-1933]
Description: Rapier. Hilt of blackened iron. Large fig-shaped pommel with prominent button. Guards of flat oval section, consisting of knuckle-guard, the top flattened and turned through a right-angle and screwed into the side of the pommel, swelling at the midpoint to an oval cartouche. Below this, a loop-guard springs from the knuckle-guard to sweep across and form a ring-guard across the top of a shallow cup. This is joined to the top of the cup with curved bars. Short quillons, strongly scrolled over at the ends, which are carved in the likeness of beasts' heads. The whole hilt is decorated with rather coarse chiselling, most of it now worn and unidentifiable. There are oval cartouches at the midpoint of the loop/ring guard over the edges of the cup, which bear traces of crude full-face human heads, repeated on either side of the cup which is roughly chiselled with scrolling tendrils and is pierced ? jour. There is a stout quillon-block, deeply chiselled with vague and indeterminate lines. The guards show traces of having been ribbed long ways. The original grip is spirally fluted and bound with brass wire, fine twisted strands horizontally and plain, thicker wire following the spiral flutes. Turks' heads at the top and bottom. Blade of flat horizontal section with a short narrow fuller at the forte ending in a ricasso, most of which is contained within the cup. There are traces of letters in this fuller, only two Roman capital Es, a C and an N being decipherable.
Norman hilt type 88, variant 2. | Format: | text/html | License: | http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/terms.htm | Publisher: | The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK | Rights holder: | The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK | Subjects: | rapier Unknown weapons | Temporal: | name=17th Century; start=1635; end=1650 | Source: | Fitzwilliam Museum | Creator: | The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK | Identifier: | http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/opacdire... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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