Inventory

Gem set jade-hilted khanjar

Full Description:

An exemplary specimen of the armorial bejewelled aesthetic and steel blade design, typical of the Islamic Gunpowder Empires¹. This wonderful khanjar or jambiya dagger is a long-standing witness of the intricate exchanges and mutual influences occurring in the Islamic and Indian lands throughout the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.

Its form is almost identical to another well-known example located in the Dresden Armoury (Rustkammer, Staaliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden²), which was captured as ‘booty’ at Varna, Bulgaria, by the Russians in 1828, and presented to Prince Carl of Prussia by Tsar Nicholas I.

Like other eighteenth-century bejewelled daggers that entered prestigious European and American collections, this example features intriguing characteristics which make its attribution all the more interesting. Firstly, its hilt, often referred to as pistol-grip or parrot-headed, presents a ubiquitous ancestry. After a hiatus of several centuries, pistol-grip hilts made an important return in the armorial aesthetic of the Islamic Empires in the second half of the sixteenth century. This was evidenced through surviving examples and also by documentary evidence such as Indian and Iranian manuscript illustrations and paintings of the time³. The Mughal emperors appeared particularly fond of this shape, as they commissioned some of the most exquisite gem-set specimens, a large portion of which are now preserved in the Al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait⁴. These complex lapidary masterpieces often distinguished themselves by using the local Indian hyper-purified gold setting technique called kundan. This truly autochthonous method was never practised outside the borders of the Indian Subcontinent.⁵ Concurrently, in Iran and Ottoman Turkey, gemstones were often set in high collets and embellished with floral collars, or thin claw mounts, using slightly clunkier setting methods than Mughal models.

The pale nephrite jade hilt and scabbard mounts of this dagger feature a lavish lapidary decoration of unevenly sized cabochon rubies and emeralds arranged as lobate flower heads and buds with tiny drop-shaped leaves. The arrangement of these jewelled clusters is reminiscent of pomegranates, a universally revered fruit symbolising abundance, ripeness, and good tidings. The quillon is further enhanced with a row of small rubies and larger emeralds of ascending size, and the apex of the pommel includes a double row of rubies terminating with an emerald foliate trellis on each side. These gemstones appear to be secured within parcel-gilt shaped collets and straps applied directly onto hollowed recesses carved into the jade hilt, possibly attempting to imitate Indian kundan work. This type of setting with an analogous floral arrangement can be seen on a jambiya dagger attributed to eighteenth-century Ottoman Turkey at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, once part of the George C. Stone’s collection.⁶ Both daggers feature unevenly sized cabochon rubies and emeralds set in flower-shaped parcel-gilt collets directly applied to the jade hilt. Another eighteenth-century Ottoman gem-set hardstone-hilted dagger with pistol grip, sold at Sotheby’s London in 2012 (25 April 2012, lot 613)⁷, showcases the same fashion of adding clusters of unevenly (and often roughly) cut and sized cabochon gemstones onto metal collets set into the hilts. In conclusion, the setting technique and overall lapidary arrangement unequivocally point towards an Ottoman attribution, rather than Indian.

The distinctive wavy blade of watered steel features traces of gold-inlaid vegetal decoration remaining at the forte and a highlighted border along the sinuous edges, further reinforcing this dagger’s connection to Ottoman Turkey. Indeed, throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Ottoman steel blades were often embellished with gold-damascened vegetal trellis, scrolls, and foliage, as evident in the two previously mentioned daggers as well as in another two sold respectively at Christie’s London, 20 April 1999, lot 387, and more recently, Sotheby’s London, 26 October 2022, lot 135⁸. The focus on the vegetal and foliate decorative pattern, instead of the dense floral triumph often seen on Indian blades, can perhaps be linked to the traditional Turkish motif known as rumi, consisting in intricate vegetal meanderings and scrollworks already widely in use in Anatolia and Central Asia starting from the fourteenth century CE.

The original wooden scabbard, covered with modern velvet to dress and preserve the older, now-worn fabric, is fitted with a jade top locket, presenting the same jewelled clusters in the shape of flowers or pomegranates of the hilt, and a jade chape, characterised by an unequivocal Indian motif and gem setting method. In fact, the stones are set in kundan and arranged in a floral blossom stemming from a circular seed, developing into a cusped flower head accompanied by a pair of symmetrically positioned drop-shaped leaves. This motif is ubiquitous in seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Mughal chapes originating from the Deccan plateau⁹.

This mesmerising dagger takes the beholder on a Grand Tour from India to Turkey. It seems fair to assume that the hilt (possibly originally plain); the wooden scabbard; and the encrusted chape made their way to the Ottoman lands from Deccan or Northern India, as lavish and desirable exotica pieces or diplomatic gifts. Once landed in the Ottoman domains, the hilt might have been subsequently carved and embellished with a floral arrangement of cabochon rubies and emeralds in Ottoman-style settings and fitted onto a Turkish gold-damascened wavy steel blade. Composite daggers with Indian hilts and Ottoman blades are not uncommon. Often joined in the cosmopolitan mercantile centre of Istanbul in the second half of the nineteenth century, separate armorial elements originating from the Eastern frontiers of the Islamic lands yielded new, opulent, and flamboyant creations ready to mesmerise and be sold to the highest bidders, which were commonly wealthy European and American travellers and collectors. Among the most recurrent characteristics of these composite daggers, was the inclusion of faceted gems set into applied filigreed or collared strapwork settings; the frequent use of Indian hardstone hilts; and blades of crucible steel, either chiselled in bold relief or damascened in gold with interlocking vegetal scrollwork and palmette designs.¹⁰

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York vaunts a remarkable selection of these such daggers. They entered the museum’s collection thanks to the bequests of two private collectors, notably the well-known American arms collector and author George Cameron Stone (1859 – 1935) and the Venetian financier and banker Giovanni P. Morosini (1832 – 1908), who is believed to have acquired nine examples of this hybrid group in Istanbul around 1900, including an impressive tray of five Indo-Turkish bejewelled pastiche daggers.¹¹

B.C. & R.S.

Provenance

Private New York collection

Sold by Runjeet Singh Limited in 2016

London art market

Purchased in 1953 in the U.S.A. by Jerry Lamb, Portland, Oregon, USA

Literature

Runjeet Singh, Arms & Armour from the East 2016, pp.38-39, cat.no.14.