Skip to main content
Bonhams
Search

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

A Cased Pair Of Scottish 50-Bore Percussion Duelling Or Target Pistols By Alex.r Martin, Glasgow, Mid-19th Century
The medals and associate ephemera and uniforms of Arthur Watts, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons
A Pair Of Highland All-Metal Percussion Belt Pistols Signed Paton & Walsh Perth, Mid 19th century
A Silver-Mounted Left-Hand Dagger, probably German, Italian or English Late 16th Century Or Later
FOUR REPRODUCTION CARVED POWDER HORNS/FLASKS.late 20th century.
THREE CARVED COCONUT ITEMS.18th/19th century.
A COLLECTION OF ANTIQUE AND REPRODUCTION POWDER FLASKS AND RELATED SPORTING ITEMS.
THREE VICTORIAN ARMS AND ARMOUR DECORATIVE ITEMS.
Previous Lot
Next Lot
Lot 112

A Fine North European Rapier With Gilt Swept-Hilt
Early 17th Century

Fine Antique Arms & Armour Including An Important Group Of British Firearms
23 September 2020, 10:30 BST
London, Knightsbridge

£5,000 - £7,000

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Arms and Armour specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

A Fine North European Rapier With Gilt Swept-Hilt
Early 17th Century

With bright slender tapering blade of flattened hexagonal section becoming flattened diamond at the point, the forte with central fuller on each side incised 'MEVES BERNS' between cross potent marks, rectangular ricasso with double fuller on both sides and struck with the mark of Mewes Berns, a stag in a roundel, hilt of flattened rounded bars composed of an outer ring linked by a diagonally downcurved bar to a small side-ring beneath, the space opposite filled by an upcurved bar, curved arms, vertically recurved quillons widening towards the tips, inner-guard of three slender bars of circular section swept-up into one and joining the forward quillon, tall faceted ovoidal pommel, later grip and button, the former bound with variously twisted iron wire, and retaining much of its original gilding
96.8 cm. blade

Footnotes

Provenance
Sotheby's Olympia, Antique Arms, Armour & Militaria, 29 June 2005, lot 35
Christie's South Kensington, Antique Arms, Armour And Collectors Firearms, 22 June 2011, lot 109

For more information regarding other examples and locations of rapiers of this type see A.V.B. Norman, The Rapier and Small-Sword 1460-1820, 1980, pp. 94-95, pls. 48 and 49

For the bladesmith's mark see Albert Weyersberg, Solinger Schwertschmiede Des 16. Und 17. Jahrhunderts Und Ihre Erzeugnisse..., 1926, p. 11, figs. 6

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Cased Pair Of Scottish 50-Bore Percussion Duelling Or Target Pistols By Alex.r Martin, Glasgow, Mid-19th Century
The medals and associate ephemera and uniforms of Arthur Watts, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons
A Pair Of Highland All-Metal Percussion Belt Pistols Signed Paton & Walsh Perth, Mid 19th century
A Silver-Mounted Left-Hand Dagger, probably German, Italian or English Late 16th Century Or Later
FOUR REPRODUCTION CARVED POWDER HORNS/FLASKS.late 20th century.
THREE CARVED COCONUT ITEMS.18th/19th century.
A COLLECTION OF ANTIQUE AND REPRODUCTION POWDER FLASKS AND RELATED SPORTING ITEMS.
THREE VICTORIAN ARMS AND ARMOUR DECORATIVE ITEMS.