Dagger with Hilt in the Form of a Blue Bull (Nilgai)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/453253 Description from the Met Museum: The weaponry produced at the Mughal court reflects the same refinement as other portable arts. Daggers such as this one were sometimes awarded to officers who had distinguished themselves in military victory and were worn at court as dress accessories indicating royal favor. Animal-headed hilts were especially favored, and the realism of their rendering conveys the keen appreciation for nature by Mughal artists. On this dagger, the hilt portrays a nilgai, or blue bull, one of the most beautiful animals found in India, and terminates at the base with a leafy scroll and lotus flower. Carved from a bluish-green nephrite that approximates the color of the animal, this hilt not only demonstrates the artist's thorough mastery of hard-stone carving, but also displays a level of accuracy and sensitivity that suggest close observation of a model, perhaps one of the captive animals kept in the imperial zoo.
Catalogue entry: Lively animal sculpture has been a staple of Indian art, not least under the Mughals, who loved, respected, and understood animals, often in the paradoxical way of hunters. Inasmuch as their religious tradition did not encourage large-scale figurative sculpture, their sculptural objects took on special importance. If small it must be, let it be wondrously small! was the credo of connoisseurs who usually conceived things either as big or little, not in between—vast forts and palaces, little pictures, and objects preciously small as jewels.
Those made to be carried brought particular pleasure. A fine dagger at the belt, accessible to eye and hand, was aesthetically satisfying as well as necessary. Like jewels, daggers indicated a Mughal's position at court. Although very fine weapons were available in the bazaars, the best ones came from the imperial workshops, and wearing one signaled imperial approval. Thus, a courtier knew another's standing at a glance. A nobleman close to the emperor might have worn a jewel-sized portrait of Shah Jahan, while a member of Dara-Shikoh's faction proclaimed his loyalty with that prince's likeness on his turban.
A close look at the many hundreds of elegant personages thronging the miniatures of the Padshah-nama reveals that by far the most common form of dagger worn was the katar (no. 178 in this volume), with the curved khanjar (no. 98 in this volume) next in popularity, followed by the straight-bladed kard (no. 131 in this volume). Only a small number of hilts with animal finials are known, and these include examples with a horse or nilgai, worn by Dara-Shikoh and Shah Shuja'.[1] Although animal-hilted daggers—ordinarily with horses—proliferated during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they were exceedingly rare during the reign of Shah Jahan. A superbly sculptured hilt such as this one portraying a nilgai, or blue bull, with its acutely sensitive observation of the animal and its marvelous craftsmanship, could only have been made in the imperial ateliers. [2]
[Welch 1985]
Footnotes:
1. In the Windsor Castle Padshah-nama, both Dara-Shikoh and Shah Shuja' wear daggers with nilgai hilts in a miniature that shows Shah Jahan receiving an embassy of Europeans (folio 115v); and in a darbar scene by Balchand, Dara-Shikoh is portrayed wearing a horse-hilted dagger (folio 72v). Few other animal hilts can be found in the manuscript, which is our most reliable source of information.
2. Another nilgai hilt, carved in lighter, blue-green jade, is in the collection of Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi. See Morley, Grace. "On Applied Arts of India in Bharat Kala Bavan." In Chhavi: Golden Jubilee Volume. Banaras, 1971, p. 117, pl. 12.
Transcript of audio guide from the Met Museum: NAVINA HAIDAR: "The Mughal rulers of India were great lovers of precious materials, and their patronage of the jeweled arts is one of the great features… of Mughal art. Here in this case, you're looking at works of art that were made in a very rare and precious material, which is jade, nephrite jade. …Mughal craftsmen fashioned this incredibly hard material into works of art for a variety of uses, from dagger hilts, which were worn not only as weapons but also as part of personal adornment and costumes… but also little bowls, and mirror handles and many, many other courtly objects. The daggers… were of course worn as part of courtly costume.You often see in Mughal painting nobles wearing these in their belts. And these were given out often as royal gifts… to acknowledge the importance of a particular person at court. Nephrite jade actually comes in a variety of shades, from pale white all the way to dark green, and the Mughals were fond of the whole range of nephrite. A lot of scholarship has been done and is continuing to be done on understanding how the craftsmen were able to take this incredibly hard material and turn it into the incredibly sensitive studies of animals and plants that you see in Mughal jade carving."
Dagger with Hilt in the Form of a Blue Bull (Nilgai)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/453253
Description from the Met Museum:
The weaponry produced at the Mughal court reflects the same refinement as other portable arts. Daggers such as this one were sometimes awarded to officers who had distinguished themselves in military victory and were worn at court as dress accessories indicating royal favor. Animal-headed hilts were especially favored, and the realism of their rendering conveys the keen appreciation for nature by Mughal artists.
On this dagger, the hilt portrays a nilgai, or blue bull, one of the most beautiful animals found in India, and terminates at the base with a leafy scroll and lotus flower. Carved from a bluish-green nephrite that approximates the color of the animal, this hilt not only demonstrates the artist's thorough mastery of hard-stone carving, but also displays a level of accuracy and sensitivity that suggest close observation of a model, perhaps one of the captive animals kept in the imperial zoo.
Catalogue entry:
Lively animal sculpture has been a staple of Indian art, not least under the Mughals, who loved, respected, and understood animals, often in the paradoxical way of hunters. Inasmuch as their religious tradition did not encourage large-scale figurative sculpture, their sculptural objects took on special importance. If small it must be, let it be wondrously small! was the credo of connoisseurs who usually conceived things either as big or little, not in between—vast forts and palaces, little pictures, and objects preciously small as jewels.
Those made to be carried brought particular pleasure. A fine dagger at the belt, accessible to eye and hand, was aesthetically satisfying as well as necessary. Like jewels, daggers indicated a Mughal's position at court. Although very fine weapons were available in the bazaars, the best ones came from the imperial workshops, and wearing one signaled imperial approval. Thus, a courtier knew another's standing at a glance. A nobleman close to the emperor might have worn a jewel-sized portrait of Shah Jahan, while a member of Dara-Shikoh's faction proclaimed his loyalty with that prince's likeness on his turban.
A close look at the many hundreds of elegant personages thronging the miniatures of the Padshah-nama reveals that by far the most common form of dagger worn was the katar (no. 178 in this volume), with the curved khanjar (no. 98 in this volume) next in popularity, followed by the straight-bladed kard (no. 131 in this volume). Only a small number of hilts with animal finials are known, and these include examples with a horse or nilgai, worn by Dara-Shikoh and Shah Shuja'.[1] Although animal-hilted daggers—ordinarily with horses—proliferated during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they were exceedingly rare during the reign of Shah Jahan. A superbly sculptured hilt such as this one portraying a nilgai, or blue bull, with its acutely sensitive observation of the animal and its marvelous craftsmanship, could only have been made in the imperial ateliers. [2]
[Welch 1985]
Footnotes:
1. In the Windsor Castle Padshah-nama, both Dara-Shikoh and Shah Shuja' wear daggers with nilgai hilts in a miniature that shows Shah Jahan receiving an embassy of Europeans (folio 115v); and in a darbar scene by Balchand, Dara-Shikoh is portrayed wearing a horse-hilted dagger (folio 72v). Few other animal hilts can be found in the manuscript, which is our most reliable source of information.
2. Another nilgai hilt, carved in lighter, blue-green jade, is in the collection of Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi. See Morley, Grace. "On Applied Arts of India in Bharat Kala Bavan." In Chhavi: Golden Jubilee Volume. Banaras, 1971, p. 117, pl. 12.
Transcript of audio guide from the Met Museum:
NAVINA HAIDAR: "The Mughal rulers of India were great lovers of precious materials, and their patronage of the jeweled arts is one of the great features… of Mughal art. Here in this case, you're looking at works of art that were made in a very rare and precious material, which is jade, nephrite jade. …Mughal craftsmen fashioned this incredibly hard material into works of art for a variety of uses, from dagger hilts, which were worn not only as weapons but also as part of personal adornment and costumes… but also little bowls, and mirror handles and many, many other courtly objects. The daggers… were of course worn as part of courtly costume.You often see in Mughal painting nobles wearing these in their belts. And these were given out often as royal gifts… to acknowledge the importance of a particular person at court. Nephrite jade actually comes in a variety of shades, from pale white all the way to dark green, and the Mughals were fond of the whole range of nephrite. A lot of scholarship has been done and is continuing to be done on understanding how the craftsmen were able to take this incredibly hard material and turn it into the incredibly sensitive studies of animals and plants that you see in Mughal jade carving."