A fine Mughal jade-hilted watered-steel dagger (khanjar) North India, 17th...
Property from a deceased estate
A fine Mughal jade-hilted watered-steel dagger (khanjar)
North India, 17th Century
the slightly curved double-edged watered-steel blade with waved edges and armour-piercing tip, five fullers, one with running seed pearls or 'tears of the afflicted', engraved and decorated with foliate cartouches to the forte and above the piercing tip to each side, the fluted jade hilt of waisted form, the collar decorated in gold overlay with floral scrollwork
45.9 cm. long
Provenance
Private UK collection, formed in the mid 20th Century, and thence by descent.
The use of pearls within the blade of the present lot to represent the tears of the afflicted is unusual, the balls normally being made of steel. For an example of a 17th Century khanjar with seed pearls within the blade channels, see Robert Hales, Islamic and Oriental Arms and Armour: A Lifetime's Passion, London, 2013, p. 31, cat. 74.
Bid on this lot
Property from a deceased estate
A fine Mughal jade-hilted watered-steel dagger (khanjar)
North India, 17th Century
the slightly curved double-edged watered-steel blade with waved edges and armour-piercing tip, five fullers, one with running seed pearls or 'tears of the afflicted', engraved and decorated with foliate cartouches to the forte and above the piercing tip to each side, the fluted jade hilt of waisted form, the collar decorated in gold overlay with floral scrollwork
45.9 cm. long
Provenance
Private UK collection, formed in the mid 20th Century, and thence by descent.
The use of pearls within the blade of the present lot to represent the tears of the afflicted is unusual, the balls normally being made of steel. For an example of a 17th Century khanjar with seed pearls within the blade channels, see Robert Hales, Islamic and Oriental Arms and Armour: A Lifetime's Passion, London, 2013, p. 31, cat. 74.
