Weve been asking the staff what Wallace object theyd love to receive on Christmas Day and next up is Francesca Levey, our Research Assistant. #WallaceChristmas Shes chosen the Claude Martin dagger and heres why... For me this object really encapsulates the spirit of the courtly Indian arms and #armour in our Collection: it’s a statement of wealth, power, artistic taste but, most of all, detail. At first the pattern on the rock crystal hilt just looks like red stones linked with gold inlay, but look closer and you see that they are ruby hummingbirds attending flowers. The quillons, from a distance seem to just continue the general theme of jewel encrusted opulence, but look again and you will see they end in tiny tigers heads with carved ruby noses, onyx eyes and a miniature ruby tongue. To round up this theme of minuscule details, when this dagger was taken to conservation we found the minute signature ‘Claude Martin’, a French Major General, scratched onto one of the side panels. The whole armoury is brimming with these tiny details that are so easy to miss and this dagger always reminds me to look at things more closely.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 09:34:00 +0000
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