Lot 158. An exceptional dagger with fine openwork gold-inlaid steel blade with inscriptions, Turkey, 16th century, with Mughal jade hilt, India, 17th-18th century. Estimate 200,000 — 300,000 GBP (253,420 — 380,130 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

the double-edged blade gently curved with a swelled tip, with central open-worked groove, the raised panel at the forte decorated on one side with gold-inlaid scrolling flowers, decorated en-suite at the tip of the blade, two lines of inscriptions in fine nasta’liq script within cartouches on the central section, the other side with further gold-inlaid inscriptions and decoration of chinoiserie cloud bands in reserve at the forte and tip, the jade hilt of waisted baluster form with scrolling quillons and pommel terminals, carved throughout with leafy flowers, set with nine coloured gemstones; 37.5cm. 

Provenance: Formerly in a private European collection, purchased prior to the 1960s

Note: inscriptions

One side:

Two couplets in Persian: 
“‘Ali's sword is … like a hypocrite,
It is double-pointed like the dawn, but both [points] are truthful.”

The couplet plays on a pun which is not easily rendered into English. 'Ali's sword, Dhu'l-Fiqar, had a forked blade and is here likened to the double tongue of a hypocrite. Dhu'l-Fiqar is also likened to the dawn, known as dam-e sobh, literally 'point of the morning' in Persian. There are two moments in the dawn, the 'false' dawn, when a column of white light appears in the sky; this disappears and is followed shortly by the first rays of light that constitute the 'true' dawn. Unlike the dawn, however, both points of Dhu'l-Fiqar are 'true'. The word following 'Ali undeciphered.

And:
“Whoever's head has been cut off by the sword of love,
The lowliest [person?] has reached the place of his zenith.”

This couplet comes from the Kanz al-Rumuz of Mir Husayni Sadat (d.1319 AD).

Other side:
Two couplets in Turkish:

From Fuzuli's (d.1556) Leyla ve Mecnun:
“The ringlet and the eyelash, the dagger and the noose, it's enough!
Execute his command, both hang and stab!”

This couplet plays on the standard imagery of the beloved as both beautiful and bloodthirsty. The beloved's hair and eyelashes are compared to a noose and a dagger.

And:
“I requested a sip of water from your piercing dagger,
What would happen if you were once to make me drink it, what would leave your side (i.e. what would it cost you)?”

This couplet is also found on a dagger in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, inv. no. 1890.280 (see The Arts of Islam, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 1976, pp.198-99, no.232) and on a dagger in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 36.25.670) (see Alexander 2016, pp.196-7, no.76).

The couplet plays on the notion of the watered blade, with the thirsty poet/lover begging for a drink from the blade of the beloved. The imagery is similar to the previous Turkish couplet in that the beloved is portrayed as bloodthirsty and callous. As is typical, the poet/beloved is utterly subservient to the point that he wishes for death at the hands of the beloved. 

This gold-inlaid dagger is a splendid example of imperial Ottoman craftsmanship of the first half of the sixteenth century. The blade belongs to a small group of similarly-decorated pieces in Museum collections around the world, a handful of which (including the present example) bear elaborate and finely executed inscriptions in gold inlay. It is highly likely that these blades were made by skilled Tabrizi craftsmen, taken back to Istanbul after the battle of Chaldiran in 1514.

One dagger from this group is in the Topkapi Saray Museum, the hilt of which identifies it as having been made for Sultan Selim I in 1514-15 (see Atil 1987, p.58, no.91), possibly produced to commemorate the battle of Chaldiran, since it includes the phrase feth-i Iran, ‘conquest of Iran’.

Other related blades are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, no.C.208 (see Washington 1987, no.94) and two in the Treasury of the Teutonic Order, Vienna, inv.nos. 172 and 174. The latter two daggers were in the collection of Archduke Maximillian, one being presented to his brother Albert in around 1599. Both daggers are recorded in the Order’s inventory of 1619. No.174 is inscribed in Ottoman Turkish. A further example is in the Wurttembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart, no.E.7260. It is recorded in the Kunstkammer of Herzog Johann Friedrich (1582-1628) and was first noted in the inventory of 1616. 

Further comparable blades exist in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, A.1890-280 (purchased from the Richard Collection at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 36.25.670 (bequest of George C. Stone, 1925); the Wallace Collection, London, OA 1430 (purchased by the 4th Marquess of Hertford at the Paris sale of the Duc de Morny, 1865); the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Y 0139 (presented as a gift to Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony by Emperor Matthias in 1617); the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London, MTW1143; the Stibbert Museum, Florence (two) and in a Danish collection (published in Copenhagen 1982, p.110, no.68). The documented provenance of many of these pieces suggests that the goldsmiths in Istanbul’s imperial workshops were commissioned to produce a series of high-quality daggers, some if not all of which were intended to be presented to European rulers and members of the high nobility.

We are grateful to Will Kwiatkowski for his assistance in the reading of this lot's inscriptions.

Sotheby's. Arts of the Islamic World, London, 20 Apr 2016, 10:30 AM