A fine early Ottoman inlaid dagger with jade hilt, Turkey, 16th century

inscriptions

At the base of the blade, a couplet from a Turkish gazel by Baki (1526-1600)

[hançerün] sînemi delerse eğer

şöyle bir hayr ider ki câna değer

'Should you dagger desire my breast,

It would be a charitable act, worthy of a life.'

At the point of the blade, a verse in Turkish, unidentified: 

şükrüm budur ki tuttı beni hâr-ı hançerün

'I am grateful that the thorn of your dagger caught me'

For a German translation of the gazel by Baki, see Joseph von Hammer(-Purgstall), Baki’s, des grössten türkischen dichters, Diwan, Vienna, 1825, no.42, pp.60-1.

Thin lines of inlaid gold create an openness in the scrolling vine motif that emphasises the dark watered texture of the crucible steel ground. At the same time, the poetic inscription is rendered in a bold nasta‘liq with an inlaying technique used on some of the finest sixteenth-century Ottoman sword and dagger blades. Instead of cutting wide channels for traditional inlay, only the outlines of the design are cut. Thin sheets of gold are then laid over the design and secured in the cut outlines, often giving a slight texture to the inscription, although in the finest examples, as here, the gold inlay is made flush with the surface of the blade. This technique allowed the goldsmith to minimize intervention on the unforgiving steel surface and protect the structural integrity of the blade.

The open design inlaid on the blade is closely comparable to that on an exceptional dagger formerly in the collection of the Duc de Morny (d.1865) and now in the Wallace Collection, London (inv. no.OA1430). Another dagger blade with a comparably open design was in the collection of Edward Beghian, Istanbul, in 1910, when it was exhibited at the Austellung von Meisterwerken muhammedanischer Kunst in Munich (cat. no.271). An example of a contemporary knife with a denser inlaid scrolling vine motif was sold in these rooms, 28 April 2004, lot 146.