|
Date: |
|
Description: | Artist: Palumbo, Onofrio - Italian painter, act. mid 17th cent.;
Production Place: Italy; Date(s): circa 1650 - 1660; Classification(s): weapons, rapier, casting (process), sword, cast, with a grooved blade and chiselled decoration; Acquisition: bought by Leverton Harris Fund, 1947-10-18 [M.15-1947]
Description: Rapier. Large, well-formed button-shaped pommel with a prominent tang-button. Knuckle-guard and long straight quillons of circular section, all neatly chiselled with a spiralling ribbon pattern. The knuckle-guard terminates against the side of the pommel with a broad, flat button. Similar terminals are at each end of the quillons. There is a very wide, strongly shaped cusped ecusson, deeply chiselled with a springing and scrolling floral design. There is a pair of branches enclosed within the deep spherical cup-guard. This is rimmed with a roped border, below which the entire cup is chiselled ? jour with the customary scrolling floral patterns common to most of these cup-hilt rapiers of Spanish fashion. In the case, the scrolls of foliage enclose apparent thistle-heads. The garda polvo, generally an exquisitely chiselled plate, is here merely a flat iron disc bolted on to the ends of the branches. At the bottom of the cup, on the outside is a circular panel (through the centre of which the blade joins) with a ribbon design incorporating the legend LAURENTIUS PALUMBO DE NAPOLI FECIT. The bottom of the cup, just above this panel is broken away, showing the edge ? replaced garda polvo. Blade of multiple section; diamond from the joint to halfway up, turning there to flat hexagonal. There is a short, narrow fuller on each side occupying 15.4 cm (6") of the flat of the blade, which above turns to a flat section. Strong ricasso, its lower half showing below the cup-guard. There is a maker's mark stamped on one side. Grooved blade inscribed 'I.N.R.I. & Maria'. | 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 weapons Palumbo, Onofrio | Temporal: | name=mid-17th Century; start=1650; end=1660 | 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 |
|
|