Provenance: French private collection, by descent.

This kard dagger comprises a late 15th or 16th-century jade hilt, to which an ostentaious bejwelled scabbard and bolster have been added in the 19th century.

The hilt is finely inlaid with gold split leaf palmette arabesques in the tahnishan technique. This technique has historically been associated with Timurid craftsmen in Herat and Samarkand. However, more recent scholarship suggests that it has Turkic origins, practiced in Turcoman Tabriz in the late 15th century and Ottoman Istanbul in the 16th century.[1] A chalcedony dagger hilt inlaid with very similar split palmettes is in the Wallace Collection, London (no. OA1414). It is attributed to Tabriz and is dated 902 AH (1496–97 CE). Another jade hilt with similar ornamentation, this time attributed to 16th-century Turkey, is in the Furusiyya Art Foundation, Vaduz, Liechtenstein (inv. no. R-981), but this time it has been attributed to Ottoman Turkey in the 16th century.[2]

The bejewelled silver work is characteristic of a group of edged weapons produced in 18th- and early 19th-century Istanbul, often reusing older jade hilts. The majority of the surviving examples are found in American and European collections, suggesting that they were made as souvenirs for Western travellers in Turkey. The blades are frequently inscribed with pseudo-calligraphy and spurious 17th- and 18th-century dates.[3]

Work like this was probably produced by Armenian jewellers. The Istanbul jewellery trade was traditionally dominated by Greek artesans. However, Ottoman Sultans in the 16th and 17th centuries brought Armenian goldsmiths to Istanbul. By 1806, the majority of well-known goldsmiths in Istanbul were Armenian.[4] A gun and its associated accessories, known as the ‘Turkish Hunting Set’, is in the Walter’s Art Museum, Baltimore (no. 51.84). The jewelling it attributed to Hovhannes Agha Düz, an Armenian Christian who is believed to have been Mahmud I’s chief goldsmith in the 1730s.[5]

A kinjal in the George F. Harding Collection in the Art Institute of Chicago (accession no. 1982.2167a-c) is dated to the 19th century. The split-palmette arabesques inlaid in gold to its jade hilt closely resemble the craftmanship on our kard. A group of five daggers in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (no. 23.232.1), comprises four examples with earlier Mughal hilts.

[1] Spink, Michael. 'Dragons and Arabesques: Jade Carving in Persia and Central Asia in the 15th Century, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Soceity 80 (2015), pp. 2–25: pp. 21–22.

[2] Furusiyya Art Foundation Collection. The Arts of the Muslim Knight. Milan: Skira, 2008, p. 175, cat. 163.
[3] Alexander, David, Stuart W. Pyhrr, and Will Kwiatkowski. Islamic Arms and Armor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015, pp. 11–12.

[4] Tokat, Osep. Hay Artsatagorts Varpetner / Armenian Master Silversmiths. VA: Northidge, 2005, p. 282.

[5] Keskiner, Bora, Ünver Rüstem, and Tim Stanley. ‘Armed and Splendorous: The Jeweled Gun of Sultan Mahmud I’, in Amy S. Landau (ed.) Pearls on a String: Artists, Patrons, and Poets at the Great Islamic Courts. Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2015, pp. 205–241: pp. 219–220.