A Scottish Basket Hilted Sword dating to circa 1730 mounted with an ANDRIA FARARA marked blade

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Price: £6,450

Ref: 42112252

Item Description

A fine and robust Scottish basket hilted sword dating to circa 1720 to 1740. The sword is a bold and attractive example mounted with a broad double edged blade and is typical of what most collectors of Scottish arms and armour refer to as a “period” piece, in that it is a fully developed basket hilt and dates to the period before the Highland clan structure was dismantled after the  failure of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion.

The fully developed basket guard is finely forged into its elegantly rounded profile. The two main frontal guard panels are decorated in traditional style, with vertical and horizontal border lines incised into the exterior surfaces towards the panel edges to form squares. Inside these squares a circle is pierced into the centre, surrounded by pierced flanged hearts at the sides and circles in the corners.

The smaller, secondary guard plates to the sides, and the knucklebow plate at the front, are finished with similar features enhanced with decorative parallel lines along the vertical lengths and laterally at the base. The side panels are mounted on decorative merlons which connect the side guard bars and strengthen the guard. All of the panels are symmetrically  decorated at the edges with intricate file work consisting of cusps, crescents and merlons.

The dome-shaped pommel has a flat ribbed button on top and is decorated with three sets of incised lines, equally spaced apart, the centre line being  wider than those on its flanks, which radiate from the button. The upper guard arm terminals of the basket fit into a chiselled groove which extends for the full circumference of the pommel just below its middle to secure the structure.

The spirally grooved wooden baluster shaped grip is covered with shagreen bound with flat metal strip and mounted with decorative metal ferrules top and bottom. The hilt has a full leather liner covered with red cloth on the outside and stitched with a blue silken hem, most of which is missing.

The double edged tapering German-made blade, most likely of Solingen manufacture, is of fine quality lenticular section. It has a  ricasso which extends 1.75 inches (4.5 cm) from the hilt which  has a narrow fuller cut just inside each blunt edge for the same length. From the end of the ricasso two fullers extend for 5.5 inches (14 cm) along the blade middle. The fullers contain the armourer’s mark ANDRIA FARARA flanked with patterns of small crosses. An elaborate cruciform shape is present just beyond the termination of the fullers on each side. The blade is 33.5 inches (85 cm) long. The blade shoulders sit in a chiselled groove in the cross guard bar underneath the hilt which retains its scrolled wrist guard.

The scabbard is of thick leather stitched along the middle on one side. The mounts are missing. However, the evidence of where the suspension clips were once placed shows it is of early form.

For similar contemporary swords see Cyril Mazansky, “British Basket-Hilted Swords”, The Boydell Press, 2005, particularly that shown on page 113, fig F15c for an example in the Marischal Museum in Aberdeen and page 120, fig F16f(WA) for a sword made by Walter Allan of Stirling displayed at Dean Castle.

The overall length of the sword is 39.5 inches (100.5 cm) long. The sword is in fine structural shape and undamaged although there is some delamination to one of the front guard panels.