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Prussia

Sabre and scabbard 1805-10

Sword: leather, silver wire, foil, gilt-brass, gilt metal. Scabbard: wood, gilt-brass, fishskin. | Length overall: 102.1 cm; length of blade: 85.9 cm width; 3.4 cm (whole object) | RCIN 61140

Queen's Guard Chamber, Windsor Castle

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  • The gilt-brass hilt consists of a guard with a full-length, longitudinally- ridged back plate terminating in a fantastic helmet with a barred visor and a plumed crest. The side iron which is spatulate-ended and of lenticular section, has a strip of cast and chiselled oak foliage applied to its forward edge. The foot, which is of flattened rectangular section, ends in the grotesque head of a lion. Chiselled with long, wavy, stylized foliage on each face of the foot and with military trophies against a matted ground on each face of the quillon-block. The slightly bellied, wooden grip which is alternately ridged and grooved spirally, is covered in dark brown leather and bound in the valleys with silver wire; a twist of two wires each made to look as if it were spirally bound with a thinner wire, all bound at intervals with a concave gilt-brass foil. The strongly curved, single-edged blade which is of T-section, has a bevelled fore edge, a shoulder, a bevelled shampre, with a triangular reinforce at the spine and a clipped point. A gilt panel at the hilt delimited by a diagonal of laurel foliage, is etched in relief with a spray of imaginary flowers on each face; after a plain section is an oval cartouche edged with laurel wreath framing a spray of imaginary flowers; after similar plain sections are a laurel swag tied with a fillet, a spray of imaginary flowers, a spray of lily-of-the-valley, and some star-like flowers. Etched along the spine at the hilt is a laurel spray, and beyond that a series of diamond-shaped panels originally gilt. The wooden scabbard has two gilt-brass mounts, the upper one shaped to represent the conventional two lockets linked by binding-strips, and the lower one to represent the chape and the lower strips, leaving two longitudinal openings which reveal the black fishskin covering the wood in these areas. There are two loose rings in oblate knobs with rectangular mouldings on oval bases. The moulding at the mouth to fit the langets is of rectangular section cast with leaves along its lower edge. The outer faces are embossed in relief and chased in rococo revival taste with military trophies around bright oval bosses framed in wavy stylized foliage, all on a matted ground and all edged with rococo waves. The binding-strips are embossed and engraved with feather-like stylized acanthus tips. The edge of the asymmetrical trail is elaborately cusped and lobed.
    Provenance

    In June 1814 the Allied sovereigns made a state visit to England to celebrate the peace following the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte and his first exile to Elba in April 1814. The sovereigns and generals of the Coalition Allies – Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and a number of German States – attended various peace celebrations around the country including a ceremony at the Royal Garrison Church in Portsmouth. On this occasion the Prince Regent was presented with ‘this Sword ... worn by the Veteran Hero Field Marshal Prince Blucher - during the whole of the Memorable Campaigns of 1813 & 1814 against the French . . .’ . John Prosser’s bill for repairing the Field Marshal's sword on 22 July 1814, is partly illegible, but it was recorded by Benjamin Jutsham, The Prince Regent's Inventory Clerk, as ‘Regilding a Sword, presented by General Blücher, repairing handle & bottom Chape, Cleaning & Darkening the Blade’, for £15 8s. The sword may have French origins. The hilt seems to owe something to a design of Nicolas-Noël Boutet who produced a number of hilts in this style; for example the sword presented to the Polish General Kniazieiwicz, now in the Polish National Army Museum, Cracow. The form of helmet used on the head of the back plate is one commonly found on the sabres of officers of the French National Guard. Nicolas Noël Boutet (1761-1833) was the director of the Manufacture de Versailles from 1798-1818. Boutet was the son of Noël Boutet, 'Arquebusier des chevaux-legers du Roi'. He followed his father's profession and married the daughter of Pierre Desaintes, the 'Arquebusier Ordinaire du Roi'. Desaintes passed on his royal appointment to his son-in-law who subsequently worked for Louis XVI at Versailles and, after the Revolution, was employed by Napoleon Bonaparte as general manager of the Manufacture de Versailles in 1798 where weapons of the highest quality were produced. When he left Versailles in 1818 he traded from premises at 87 Rue de Richelieu in Paris but continued to use the signature 'Boutet à Versailles'.

  • Medium and techniques

    Sword: leather, silver wire, foil, gilt-brass, gilt metal. Scabbard: wood, gilt-brass, fishskin.

    Measurements

    Length overall: 102.1 cm; length of blade: 85.9 cm width; 3.4 cm (whole object)


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