A Mughal mutton-fat jade 'horse-head' hilted dagger and scabbard, North India, 17th century

On 14 July 1608, when the Mughal emperor Jahangir was presented with a jade wine jug that had belonged to his Timurid predecessor Ulugh Beg, he recorded that ‘it was a precious and beautiful gift, and the stone was extremely white and flawless’ (Thackston 1999, p.95). That wine jug, now in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, is of a comparable mutton-fat colour as the present dagger hilt, with a subtle shifting of hues across the surface, testifying to the desirability of this rare colour (Gulbenkian 1963, no.28).

Mutton-fat jade, reputedly exclusively sourced from the Yurungkash (‘white jade’) river that runs through the town of Khotan and disappears into the Taklamakan desert sands, has long been held in high esteem in Mughal India. Mutton-fat jade items owned by Mughal emperors include a thumb ring belonging to Jahangir before his ascent to the throne, now in the Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi (inv. no.3/5718; Markel 1992, p.53), as well as a thumb ring and a drinking vessel owned by Shah Jahan, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. nos.1023-1871 and IS.12-1962), among others.

The use of brown-and-white banded onyx for the horse’s eyes, a rare and sought-after feature of some of the finest zoomorphic Mughal jades, highlights the understated luxury of the present dagger hilt. Possibly unique here is the setting of the onyx directly into the mutton-fat jade instead of in a kundan gold socket, emphasising the soft palette of the stone and lending the horse a quiet naturalism reminiscent of the best of Mansur’s animal portraits.

Banded onyx eyes in kundan gold settings appear on several lavish hilts attributed to Jahangir’s court workshop in the al-Sabah and Wallace Collections (Kaoukji 2017, cats 27, 65, and 174, pp.92-95, 188-93 and 468-9; Dalrymple 2019, cat.1, p.7), as well as on two further horse head dagger hilts, one of a conventional pale green jade, the other of a rare grey-scale banded jade, which were in the collections of Philippe Missillier and Edith & Stuart Cary Welch, respectively, sold in these rooms 29 April 2025, lot 41, and 25 October 2023, lot 19.