A Fine Ottoman Silver Long Knife (Yataghan), Ottoman Balkan or Greece, Dated 1219 AH/1804-5 AD
Auction Closed
April 29, 12:32 PM GMT
Estimate
7,000 - 10,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
the recurved steel blade with ‘pomegranate’ maker’s mark, set in extensively chased silver hilt with vegetal motifs and displays of arms, the wooden scabbard covered with silver chased en-suite, further including scenes of sieges, ships flying horizontal tricolours, and crowned double-headed eagle defeating serpents, inscribed ‘whatsoever God wills’ (ma sha allah)’ and ‘1219’ below the locket
82cm.
Philippe Missillier Collection no.40C
A comparable long knife dated 1224 AH/1809-10 AD is in the Wallace Collection, London, and is catalogued by Robert Elgood as probably Crete or south-western Greece (Robert Elgood, The Arms of Greece and her Balkan Neighbours in the Ottoman Period, London: Thames & Hudson, 2009, pp.146, 323-4). Both long knives form part of a group of nineteenth-century long knives that predate the beginning of the 1821 Greek War of Independence. Elgood writes that a 1783 convention gave Christian subjects of the Ottoman empire protection under the Russian flag. This may explain several motifs on the scabbard of the present long knife, including the ships proudly flying a tricolour and a crowned double-headed eagle fighting off serpents, that suggest a perspective sympathetic to Tsarist Russia.
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