Estoc de cavalerie, stöcher, monté « à la... - Lot 112 - Pierre Bergé & Associés

Estoc de cavalerie, stöcher, monté « à la hongroise », de style Styrien vers 1580-90. A Styrian cavalry estoc, stöcher, mounted in the "Hungarian" fashion, in the style of circa 1580-90. With long slender straight blade tapering to a narrow point and with a pronounced medial ridge over its entire length on both sides, iron hilt of socalled "Hungarian" form, comprising a pair of quillons of flattened diamond section strongly arched and with inward-curved "fishtail" tips, fitted over a hemispherical disc-guard with outwardly flanged rim, the inward side flattened and pointed towards the blade, and the guard in turn fitted over a tubular sleeve pierced with a heart and intended to encase the scabbard mouth, with faceted stopper-shaped pommel, the quillons, the disc-guard and the pommel each engraved with wavy lines heightened with punch marks, retaining traces of tinning, and the grip bound with patterned wire and "Turk's heads". L. overall: 121 cm - L. blade: 105.5 cm. Tinned-iron hilts of this distinctive type are mounted on several large series of cavalry swords preserved in the Zeughaus in Graz. The first recorded reference to these "Hungarian" hilts is made in the Zeughaus inventory of 1594. See PICHLER, Dr. Fritz, Das Landes-Zeughaus in Graz, Leipzig, 1880, p. 74, tafel XXIII, fig. 8. For the further series of swords in Graz with "Hungarian" hilts, see KRENN, Peter, Schwert und Spiess, Landeszeughaus Graz, 1997, pp. 30-33.