art-of-swords:Dagger and scabbardDated: 1877Culture:...

art-of-swords:

Dagger and scabbard

• Dated: 1877
  


• Culture: Indian
  


• Medium: gold, steel, pearls, diamonds, wood and velvet
  


• Acquirer: King Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom (1841-1910), when Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (married) (1863-1901)
  


• Provenance: presented to King Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, during his tour of India in 1875-76 by Jashwant Singh, Maharaja of Bharatpur
  


• Inscriptions: Inscribed (in Persian) “Work of Ibrahim 1877”
  

In addition to the luxurious, jewelled quality which is common to most of the gifts presented during the Prince of Wales’s Indian tour of 1875-6, this dagger boasts a blade of exceptional accomplishment. It is of steel, with a single polished edge and with two etched shallow grooves flanking a drilled bore in four sections which are filled with loose seed pearls. It is all the more admirable on technical grounds for the fact that the bore follows the curve of the blade. Such a weapon would obviously have certain practical limitations and it must be seen instead as an exercise in master bladesmithing.

Source: Copyright © 2015 Royal Collection Trust/Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Related post