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An Unusual Silver-Mounted Hunting Hanger Presented To John Harvey Esqr. By H.S.E. Prince Of Hesse-Cassell For Saving His Life At A Boar Hunt image 1
An Unusual Silver-Mounted Hunting Hanger Presented To John Harvey Esqr. By H.S.E. Prince Of Hesse-Cassell For Saving His Life At A Boar Hunt image 2
Lot 145

An Unusual Silver-Mounted Hunting Hanger Presented To John Harvey Esqr. By H.S.E. Prince Of Hesse-Cassell For Saving His Life At A Boar Hunt
Circa 1701

23 May 2018, 10:30 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £1,000 inc. premium

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An Unusual Silver-Mounted Hunting Hanger Presented To John Harvey Esqr. By H.S.E. Prince Of Hesse-Cassell For Saving His Life At A Boar Hunt
Circa 1701

With earlier tapering fullered saw-back blade (some surface rust) with etched Latin inscription 'NEMINEM TIMEAS' (Fear no Man) along the forte between a panel of foliage and decorative motifs on each side of the forte (very worn on one side), the ricasso on both sides stamped with the unicorn mark of Arnold Baverdt (Weyersberg, pp. 9-10), tarnished hilt comprising shell-guard cast and chased with hounds pursuing a stag in a landscape, quillon-block with a stag beset by hounds on one side and a boar beset by hounds on the other, eagle-head quillons, pommel-cap with hounds pursuing a stag and surmounted by a button, and tapering reeded hardwood grip carved with arcaded flutes on four sides, in the remains of its original leather-covered wooden scabbard painted along one side with the inscription 'Presented to John Harvey Esq.r By H.S.H. Prince of Hesse-Cassel For Saving his Li[fe] [?on] A Boar Hunt (2)
56 cm. blade

Footnotes

Provenance
John Harvey (c.1667-1721) of Finningley, Nottinghamshire and Ickwell Bury, Bedfordshire was educated at Inner Temple and St. Catherine's, Cambridge in 1682, and subsequently went on the Grand Tour between 1688 and 1689. In 1689 he married Sarah, the fourth daughter of Sir John Robinson, 1st Baronet and M.P. of Nuneham Courtnay, Oxon and Farmingwoods, Northamptonshire, who was Lord Mayor of London between 1662 and 1663. John Harvey was Sheriff of Bedfordshire between 1711 and 1712 and was re-elected for the county as a Tory in 1715 but was unseated on petition. His name was sent to the Pretender in 1721 as a probable supporter in the event of an uprising, and he died in 1721.

Burke's Geneaological and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain, 1874 quotes the following under John Harvey of Ickwell Bury: 'A very handsome silver mounted couteau de chasse was presented to this gentleman by the Prince of Hesse Cassel in 1701 in consequence of his having saved the prince's life when exposed to imminent danger in a boar hunt. It is still in the possession of the family.'

The Prince of Hesse Cassel is Prince Friedrich of Hesse Cassel, later King of Sweden (1676-1751)

Additional information

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