Day 140 - Sword hilt




March 28, 2019

 Gallery 372 is largely devoted to the weapons of 18th and 19th century America and their British  antecedents. The displays include some elaborately ornamented Colt revolvers, but of more interest to me are the swords. Again, I'm exposed to a new vocabulary. First, there are the different kinds of swords. Some terms are familiar to me, but I am not sure I could define them -- is it only its curved blade that distinguishes a saber, for instance? Other kinds of swords are are new to me (e.g.,  smallswords, hangers). And then there are the different parts of swords: the hilt, the pommel (handle), and the guard, for instance.

I learn that the smallsword was the typical sidearm worn by civilians in Europe between 1650 and 1800.  It  served as both a weapon and (as the sign describes it) "a stylish costume accessory for the fashionable gentleman."  Silver sword hilts were produced not by arms makers but by silversmiths; like other silver objects for the home and for personal adornment, they were markers of social status and wealth.  And some are truly beautiful in the elegant simplicity and graceful proportions of their designs.

Today's object is a saber made between 1805 and 1810 in Albany of steel, silver, and gold by Robert Shepherd. The hilt is perhaps 6 inches long, the saber in its entirety perhaps 40 inches. I like it because it is quite distinctive, with its cut-away area revealing fine, tightly wrapped wire, its diamond-like form covering the juncture between hilt and blade, its handle extension swooping  gracefully downward, and its pommel encircled by a wreath of leaves (acanthus? laurel?). Who carried this saber, I wonder? And for what purposes? Was it ever used as a weapon, or only for ceremonial occasions?

I hadn't really thought much about weapons as things of beauty, but of course they can be.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 349 - Charles Ray horse

Image
June 19, 2923  Gallery 917 holds the Philip Guston painting I wrote about earlier (day 341).  Gallery 918 is home to just one work: a huge (perhaps   16 feet long and   10 feet high) granite bas-relief by a contemporary American sculptor, Charles Ray, who was born in 1953. The bas-relief, sculpted in 2019, is entitled “Two Horses,” which are seen in full-body profile. But you have to look closely to see the second horse, whose head and neck are in much lower relief than the horse in the foreground, and whose torso is almost completely obscured. The main giveaway that more than one horse is depicted are the six hooves at the bottom of the image. The striations in the granite at the bottom of the relief suggest that the horses are fording a stream, with water  covering their lower legs. The sculptor has done a remarkable job of capturing the front horse’s bony legs, the musculature of its shoulder, the sinews of its neck, the feathery texture of its mane.   The caption notes that horses
Read more

Day 360 - The Wentworth room

Image
 May 18, 2024 When I enter this room (gallery 711), which was taken from a house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that was built in 1695-1700 for John Wentworth and his wife, I'm immediately struck by how much grander it seems than the Ipswich room, in spirit if not in scale. (The Wentworth room appears to me to measure about 35 feet long and 20 feet wide.)  For one thing, the fireplace, set against the long wall, is framed by beautiful dark wood paneling. (Such paneling may have lined the other walls as well, but if so, it has disappeared.) The single placard presents only very basic information about the room, but it includes  a QR code, which I dutifully scan, and to my surprise, once I've joined the Met's wifi, the website opens and contains much more detail.   I have to remind myself that, as with other period rooms, the furnishings in this room didn't come from the Wentworth home. Instead, they reflect  Met curators' knowledge about furniture styles and the curato
Read more

Day 356 - Medieval sculpture

Image
 May 7, 2024 Gallery 520 is at the area behind the large choir screen in the Medieval Art galleries. (At Christmas, the front of that screen is the site of the "angel tree" and the Neapolitan creche, where I make an annual pilgrimage; the figures of peasants tending their flocks and coming to adore the Christ child never fail  to move me.)  The gallery contains tapesetries, a large coffer, and a 14th-century Italian column head showing Saint Veronica holding up her veil on which a rather ugly head of Christ appears. A display case holds a parchment from 1466-67, during the War of the Roses, that charts the genealogy of the kings of England.  Edward IV's claim to the throne is substantiated by the inclusion among his forebears of King David, Alexander the Great, King Arthur, and William the Conqueror.   Most of the gallery, however, is devoted to sculpture.  Dating from about 1325 to 1550, the statuary comes from all over Western Europe (France, Germany, the Low Countries,
Read more