Dagger or sword hilt, white nephrite jade, carved leaf and flower decoration, inset agates, Chinese in Mughal style, 18th century, formerly in the Guthrie collection

A sword or dagger hilt fashioned in white nephrite jade with a glassy polish and ornamented in relatively high relief with elongated leaf fronds on the grip. It has six banded agate cabochons set in reflective, closed-back silver settings arranged around the grip behind the quillons. Inset around the grip in front of the pommel there are six smaller banded agate cabochons, with five being set in silver and one set in gold. The elongated oval pommel is decorated with carved flower petals with a flower bud terminal and the scroll quillon block, which has been fashioned from a separate piece of jade, also has carved flower petals. There is a hole drilled part way down the length of the hilt.

Transferred from the India Museum in 1879

This dagger hilt was originally in the Guthrie collection and was purchased for the sum of £48-0-0, when he sold 81 of his objects to The India Museum in 1868. It was subsequently transferred to The South Kensington Museum (later renamed The Victoria & Albert Museum) in 1879.

Charles Seton Guthrie was an important collector of eastern coins and Mughal Empire jade and rock crystal objects. He was the second son of Scottish parents, both of whom were from noble and landed families, and his father worked for the East India Company in Calcutta.
Guthrie most probably developed his interest in jade and rock crystal when he studied geology as a 17 year old cadet in 1825 in Addiscombe, and he joined the Bengal Engineers in 1828.
Through his family’s established connection with the Inglis and Lister families, he became acquainted with Harry Inglis and his Anglo-Indian wife Sophia (nee Lister). He may well have received gifts of objects that Harry had acquired as proceeds from his Indian military campaigns. Harry was the son and heir of George Inglis who owned Inglis & Co., a large Indian trading company.
During his time in India, Charles Guthrie enhanced his collections with acquisitions financed by his army pay and also income from properties in his late mother’s estate.
He subsequently retired at the honorary rank of Colonel in 1857, although he returned to England in 1855, at the same time as Harry and Sophia, due to having 2 years of accumulated leave.
Following Harry’s death in 1860, his embalmed body was returned to India, accompanied by Sophia and Charles, where it was interred in an above-ground tomb. Sophia inherited Harry’s vast estate, which almost certainly contained many fine jewels and Mughal objects. Sophia began living together with Charles in Calcutta, bearing him a son in 1862. Following a financially significant arrangement being agreed by Sophia with Charles, the two eventually married in 1863 with the family returning to England a short time thereafter.
Sophia died in 1866, with Charles being named as an executor with instruction to liquidate her un-itemised English estate which included “jewels, trinkets and shawls”.
Soon thereafter, in 1868, Guthrie sold part of his collection of jade and rock crystal objects to The India Museum and his large coin collection to a museum in Germany. Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie died in 1874 and the remainder of his collections was sold at auction, in accordance with the terms of his will, with many objects finding their way into other important collections and then subsequently to the museum.

The white nephrite jade hilt of this dagger, inlaid with banded agate in gold, was probably made in China in the 18th century. It imitates a Mughal model of the late 17th century. Mughal jade was greatly admired in China at this period, and many jades in Mughal style were made for the emperor Qianlong (r. 1736-95) at the court, particularly after 1760 when supplies of nephrite jade became more accessible. Thjs hilt is fashioned in white nephrite jade with a glassy polish and ornamented in relatively high relief with elongated leaf fronds on the grip. It has six banded agate cabochons set in reflective, closed-back silver settings arranged around the grip behind the quillons. Inset around the grip in front of the pommel there are six smaller banded agate cabochons, with five being set in silver and one set in gold. The elongated oval pommel is decorated with carved flower petals with a flower bud terminal and the scroll quillon block, which has been fashioned from a separate piece of jade, also has carved flower petals. There is a hole drilled part way down the length of the hilt.The dagger was formerly in the collection of the great collector of Indian and other hardstones, Colonel Charles Seton Guthrie who sold it with other objects from his collection to the Indian Museum in Leadenhall Street, London, in 1868. They were all transferred to the South Kensington Museum, later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum, in 1879.

02563(IS)