Expo number 249

 

Hilt

Comprising a handle carved with the pommel from one piece of rose(?)wood, the first of oval section and carved with longitudinal panels, partly chequered, partly with foliated fronds, the last carved in the round as two addorsed heads, that of a male towards the front (or left) and looking slightly downwards, and of a female towards the right and looking slightly upwards, the male in a bonnet-like hat, the woman with her hair encircling her forehead, both heads covered in the middle by a lozenge-shaped flat silver plate forming the pommel-cap; baggy, vertically-grooved silver tang-button, cylindrical silver ferrule, the lower half moulded, and flat vertically-recurved silver crossguard with extremities shaped and engraved as leaves - the right quillon bending in an angle of almost 90 degrees towards the blade and lying very close to it -, and pierced on each side of the ferrule with a trefoil.

 

Blade

Iron, of knife shape, but almost double-edged and with a full-length, sharpened back edge and a long and wide fuller on the right half of the blade.

 

Scabbard

Black lacquered leather, sewn in the middle on the reverse, with a full-length groove on either side fitting into the grooves in the blade, with silver mounts i.e. a locket and a chape, both with identical shaped lower and upper borders and decorated with panels framed in foliate scrolls, the panel on the locket framing the engraved initials R.R.; the reverse locket panel is plain and fitted with an eyelet with suspension ring, both silver, chape with the identical decoration on each face.

 

Remarks

(STYLE) Indonesian, but included in this catalogue because of the obvious Dutch influence in the hilt design, which is very much like the ivory grips found on hangers.