A Jade-hilted dagger in the form of Nilgai, India, 17th-18th century

the double-edged watered-steel blade with double groove and central ridge, the hilt of pale green stone carved at the forte with scroll quillons and flowering lily, ridged grip, the pommel rendered in the form of a nilgai's head, a velvet-covered wood scabbard with gilt lock and chape with knop terminal and palmette suspension loop

Nilgai hilts are rare with the majority of Mughal jade hilts usually rendered in the form of a horse head. In the Windsor Castle Padshah-nama miniature of Shah Jahan receiving an embassy of Europeans (folio 115v),  Dara-Shikoh and Shah Shuja are seen wearing daggers with nilgai hilts (Beach and Koch 1997, p.56). A fine dagger with a hilt of nilgai form is in The Metropolitan Museum (see Welch 1985, p.259, no.168) and another is published in Paris 1988, p.98, no.160. Both are of spinach green jade and dated to the second half of the seventeenth century. The ridged grip present on both the published examples and the current lot is identified by Stuart Cary Welch as feature of hilts from the second half of the seventeenth century.