An impressive gemset and enamelled gold sword (khanda) hilt, Mughal India, late 17th-early 18th century
Lot 185. An impressive gemset and enamelled gold sword (khanda) hilt, Mughal India, late 17th-early 18th century; 9¾in. (24.8cm.) long. Estimate GBP 60,000 - GBP 80,000. Price realised GBP 122,500. © Christie's Image Ltd 2013
Made in parts, the surfaces of the hilt extremely elegantly enamelled with a lively design of animals and floral motifs in a wide range of colours, the underside of the quillon, finial and outside of the handguard with diamond inset floral sprays on red or green enamelled ground, the lower mount with beautifully modelled elephant heads supporting the quillons, some losses to the enamels.
Property of a Royal house.
Note: Visitors arriving at the courts of Indian rulers in the 17th century were unanimously impressed by their material splendor. The lavishness of the interiors that greeted them, highlighted with small accents given by enamelled and jewelled objects, has been commented on time and again. Sir Thomas Roe, who was sent as an embassy to Jahangir in 1615-18 described the Mughal court as 'the treasury of the world' (Susan Strong, Nima Smith and J.C. Harle, A Golden Treasury. Jewellery from the Indian Subcontinent, London, 1989, p.27). This hilt is an example of the type of object that would have created this rich impression, a way of expressing wealth, and by implication status and military prowess.
Jewelled gold khanda hilts are today very rare. It seems that as a weapon they went out of fashion relatively early. Paintings dated to the 18th century rarely depict them. It is therefore perhaps plausible that as they did so the hilts, particularly those fashioned of and decorated with precious materials as ours, were melted down and reused. The invasion by Nadir Shah of India in 1739 saved for posterity a number of jewelled pieces which he either took back to India as booty or, in an overt display, sent with embassies to the rulers of Russia and Turkey. These however are amongst the only substantial groups of royal Mughal decorative arts in gold to have survived - the St. Petersburg items comprising the largest group which survive together. Zebrowski wrote that nothing survives in India itself (Mark Zebrowski, Gold, Silver and Bronze from Mughal India, London, 1997, p.52). Neither the St. Petersburg collection however, nor others published, include jewelled khandas of this type.
Despite the lack of examples known today, khandas were clearly a status symbol fashionable in the 17th century. Contemporaneous paintings depict Emperors and those closest to them leaning upon such swords. A painting by Bichitr in the Late Shah Jahan Album, now in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in the Smithsonian Institution, depicts Shah Jahan leaning upon a khanda whilst in conversation with Asaf Khan. That painting is dated to circa 1640 (acc.no.S86.0403; Milo Cleveland Beach and Ebba Koch, King of the World. The Padshahnama, exhibition catalogue, London, 1997, fig.19, p.124). A larger illustration in the same publication, which is an enlargement taken from the Padshahnama painting 'Courtiers attend the weighing of Shah Jahan' (dated to circa 1635) shows the khanda in closer detail - with a gold body elegantly enameled with floral sprays (Beach and Koch, op.cit., fig.7, p.112). In fact, whilst all the previously published khandahilts are decorated in gold or silver inlay (see the note that accompanies the following lot for a brief resume), many of those depicted in contemporaneous sources are clearly enamelled. Another illustration of a khanda clearly decorated in enamels is in the Minto album, painted by Balchand circa 1627-30. The painting depicts Shah Jahan and his sons on a globe, the emperor with an enameled khanda in his hands (Elaine Wright, Muraqqa'. Imperial Mughal Albums from the Chester Beatty Library, exhibition catalogue, Virginia, 2008, no.46a, p.330).