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Fig. 1475. Sword-rapier hilt
English, about 1630-40. Collection: Mr. G. H. Ramsbottom
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Fig. 1476. Sword-rapier hilt
English, about 1630-40. Collection: Mr. G. H. Ramsbottom
Mr. Felix Joubert. Our next example, the sword-rapier hilt, the cup of
which is chiselled to represent the crowned portrait bust of Charles I
(Fig. 1474), shows a still further approach in shape to the actual cup-hilted
rapier of mid-XVIIth century times; here the cup is much deeper though
it is forged in one with the remainder of the hilt. This interesting English
weapon is in the collection of Mr. Herbert Graystone. Two other sword-rapier
hilts of this same family we also illustrate. Both we think are English,
and of about the same period (Figs. 1475 and 1476), namely, from
1630 to 1640. When we come to consider the cup-hilted rapier in its fully
developed form, we have to turn to Italy for the earliest examples. As
compared with their Spanish rivals of a few years later date, these Italian hilts
have the cup at once deeper and smaller in circumference; the pommel is
still oviform, if somewhat larger in proportions as compared with the flattened
button-like pommel of the Spanish types. As a very representative example we
select a rapier in the Wallace Collection, No. 594 (Fig. 1477). The weapon
has never been tampered with; the hilt, grip, and blade all belong to one
another. The deep cup is substantial in make, pierced with conventional
monsters, masks, etc., almost in the earlier Brescian manner. The ends of
the quillons and knuckle-guard also terminate in figures of beasts. The very
unusual medium of fire gilding, a medium hardly ever seen in the decoration
of a cup-hilted rapier, enriches the whole surface of the hilt. It is a remark-
