These pieces, comprising 17th Century Dutch gilt leather panels, a 17th Century French romayne panel, and 18th century azulejos, represent diverse sorts of baroque wall paneling.
17th Century, Dutch. There is some damage to the upper left corner. An intact version is held by the Rijksmuseum, and labeled as a “View of Elmina, Cormante and the island of Goeree. Sheet with three performances, July 1665. Above: the Dutch fleet under Admiral Michiel de Ruyter with three conquered English ships for St. Iago castle in Elmina, at the top left of the legend A-n. Bottom left: View of the Fort Cormanty on the African gold coast. Bottom right: View of the island of Goeree in the Cabo Verde off the coast of Senegal.”
The seizure of Fort Cormantin and retaking of Elmina Castle from the English by Admiral De Ruyter's Mediterranean squadron in 1664 would lead to the commencement of the Second Anglo-Dutch War the following year.
18th century, French. Plates 7 and 8 from the “Military Art: Fortification” entry in the Encyclopédie. Explanations of the details in these and other plates from the same text have been provided by the University of Michigan's Encyclopedia of Diderot and D'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project here.
18th century, French. Illustration of the differences between the barbastelle and pipistrelle genuses of bats provided by Christian Friedrich Fritzsch for the Comte de Buffon's Histoire Naturelle.
An English translation of the Comte's remarks on bats can be found here.
A pair of Dutch spoons with a monogram, hallmarked as .875 standard silver in 18th century Rotterdam.
A pair of English forks with an antelope crest, hallmarked as .925 standard silver in London, 1804.
This pair of Japanese Imari plates were made circa 1870. The Confucian “Three Friends of Winter” motif of pine, plum, and bamboo appear alongside a red crowned crane in three of the six pictorial panels. The other three appear to depict an ancient turtle—its shell is trailing a long “tail” of seaweed accumulated over the years—at the mouth of a winding river. Both turtles and cranes are traditionally regarded as a symbols of longevity in Japan, so they often appear together in a “Tsuru Kame” motif.
The colorful overglaze warrants some caution when using a knife, but these plates still see use.
Royal Crown Derby Imari saucer, pattern #2712, made in February of 1901.
Crystal sugar bowl with sterling silver lid, hallmarked in Birmingham in the year 1845.
Renaissance Style Serpent Handled Florentine Teapot by Cantagalli, probably made sometime after 1880, procured from the AAFSW Book Sale at the National Museum of American Diplomacy in Washington, DC.
I was fortunate enough to get Dr. Tobias Capwell's opinion on this unusual piece. He noted that the hilt appears to be made of cast iron in the 19th century in the style of a 17th century “pillow sword”. However, it was difficult to tell at a glance if the entire piece had been cast as one brittle piece or if the hilt had been cast onto an older, functional blade. I have subsequently stumbled upon several examples with similar hilts but widely varying blades, which would seem to support the latter theory. One even appeared briefly in the Belgian period drama De Bende van Jan de Lichte, also known as Thieves of the Wood on Netflix, which is set at the end of the Austrian War of Succession in the mid-18th Century.
The earliest owner of this sword that I can identify with any certainty is Josephine Wimsatt, the daughter of a gilded age lumber magnate in Washington, DC. According to family tradition, she received the sword as a gift from a suitor. Assuming she had reached adulthood but not yet become engaged, she would have received the sword sometime between 1906 and 1916. In 1960 Josephine Wimsatt and her husband Lenox Lohr hosted then-Crown Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
A red-crowned crane is featured on the shakudo kashira, while the shakudo menuki appear to feature blooming suisen, also known as narcissus or daffodil. The tsuka is wrapped in the moro tsumami-maki style over white same, also known as shagreen or rayskin. A blossoming plum tree and what appears to be a scholar’s stone are featured on opposite sides of the shakudo fuchi.
The ji-sukashi openwork iron tsuba features a shochikubai, or “three friends of winter”, motif including plum blossoms, pine needles, and bamboo leaves. The rusted tsuba has traces of gilding remaining, and the kitsu-ana holes for a kozuka byknife and kogai hairpin appear to have been plugged with shakudo. There are gilded copper seppa above and below the tsuba. The habaki is silver foiled and features cat-scratch or rain pattern filework.
Josephine Wimsatt’s older sister, Genevieve Wimsatt, referrenced the signifcance of the crane and Three Friends of Winter motifs in her 1927 book A Griffin in China: “Scattered branches of the Prunus, one of the Three Friends, including pine and the bamboo, that defy the cold and laugh at the winter winds… The crane is the bird of longevity, and longevity is the boon most coveted” (pp. 160-161, 246). Genevieve also patented a fortune telling teacup based on her studies of Chinese folklore and commanded the Petticoat Cavalry at the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession in DC.
The blade length is approximately 25.5 inches and the total length in full koshirae is approximately 34.5 inches. It features a shinogi zukuri cross-section with an iorimune “ridged” spine and koshi sori curvature.
The blade features a conspicuously short nakago typical of one handed katateuchi swords adapted to the massed infantry battles of the Sengoku period, with a two-character nijimei signature that reads "Kunishige". The fact that the signature is on the left side of the nakago when held upright is also an indication that the blade was originally designed to be worn edge up as a katana (rather than edge down as a tachi) which is consistent with the current fittings and the katateuchi style of blade.
Kunishige is a rather common moniker for Japanese swordsmiths, but given the blade is of a style typical of the 15th and 16th centuries, the best match I have been able to find is the Ko-Mizuta school of swordsmiths. Of course, the signature could be a forgery, as this was a common practice throughout Japanese history in order to inflate the value of even high quality unsigned blades by tying them concretely to famous makers
The saya is missing its original kurikata and koiguichi, possibly a result of being retrofitted for a leather scabbard covering which was later removed so as to reveal the lacquerwork, though I have not been able to confirm this. The absence of the koiguichi in particular has led the fragile mouth of the saya to deteriorate and split along the spine. As a temporary measure to forestall further damage, I created a paper splint around the mouth of the scabbard. The mon featured in gold as a repeating pattern is a Maru ni Mitsu Kashiwa, comprising three daimyo oak leaves inside a ring, which complements the Three Friends of Tsuba motif on tsuba as it represents eternal growth. The variant of Maru ni Mitsu Kashiwa seems to be most prominently (though not exclusively) associated with the Makino clan (the mon associated with the Mitsubishi zaibatsu evolved from a variant of the same symbol featuring narrower leaves).
The defeat of the Makino daimyo of Nagaoka Domain by Imperial forces in the Hokuetsu War of 1868, followed by the de facto opening of the de jure treaty port of Niigata to foreign trade the following year, may provide a plausible explanation for how the sword found its way into American hands, while also accounting for the mon and winter imagery featured on the koshirae. Interestingly, among the samurai who died fighting on behalf of the Makino Daimyos as a result of the Hokuetsu War was Yoshimichi Yamamoto, whose heir Isoroku Yamamoto would arrive in Washington DC as a Naval Attache in 1925, shortly after the marriage of Josephine Wimsatt and Lenox Lohr in the same city.
The blade is also a remarkably good fit for a World War II era military scabbard given that it appears to have been forged several hundred years earlier, but this makes an odd sort of sense in light of the similar demands of the Sengoku Jidai and the Second World War. Before the Sengoku period, swords were primarily tailored to the needs of cavalry combat, and in the Edo period that followed, swords were primarily a peacetime sidearm. However, during the wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, with the rise of the ashigaru footsoldier alongside the introduction of Portuguese firearms, massed infantry battles were the norm, and indeed, in the Second World War, soldiers on foot once again required a blade suited to their needs.
The base of this makeshift kake, or sword stand, originates from a late 17th or early 18th century teak frame of a doorway built into a church in the Indo-Portuguese colony of Goa. The Governor of Portuguese India in Goa was responsible for assigning a captain general of the annual Japan Voyage in the years between 1550 and 1639.
This tansu comprises two stackable clothing chests each with two of their own button locking drawers. The iron hardware appears to have been forged in Kanto prefecture’s regional style, and I would guess these are probably 19th century from what I can ascertain, but it is difficult to estimate a date without any markings to go off of.
This was a perplexing piece to research, as the army shield stamped into the forte appeared typical of military heraldry from the Americas while the inscription along the spine appeared distinctively French. In point of fact, the signature on the spine reads "Manufacture d'armes de Chatellerault JH", and the shield is a Chilean Army inspection stamp.
The design is French, but after it was rejected by the French Armed Forces it was instead manufactured with certain modifications for foreign forces. This is a Chilean Model 1890 cavalry saber. The Dutch also adopted the design, beginning with their own Model 1895 sword.
The original design by Lieutenant Colonel Francois Jules Derue, intended for French officers, differs from the Chilean model mainly in its narrower, straight blade, suitable only for thrusting, and more ornamental hilt. However, the rigid T-shaped blade crossection and distinctive shape of the guard were preserved in the Chilean model.
Discovered in Wyoming. The largest piece is also the oldest, a Clovis point designed for hunting mammoth. The arrowhead directly above it is notable for having been knapped from petrified wood.
This hide scraper, also found in Wyoming, features an open vein of crystals.
Just as Bashford Dean’s interests expanded from researching armored fish to curating Arms & Armor collections for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and from there to designing helmets for soldiers of the First World War, my own interests have followed a similar trajectory, beginning with trilobitology before shifting to the armorer's art and from there to modern strategy. Indeed, this is not much of a leap, as further asociations between biology and armaments can be found in the Japanese armorer’s peacetime artform of jizai okimono and in modern biotechnology.
Although the highest concentration of trilobites is in Morocco, I excavated a number of these fossils in Utah, mostly Elrathia kingii, Bolaspidella, Peronopsis interstricta, and Asaphicus wheeleri trilobites from the Middle Cambrian period.
Another example from the Cambrian period is this Elipsocephalus hoffi trilobite discovered in the Czech Republic.
Flexicalymene (meeki and retrorsa) trilobites first emerged in the Ordovician period and were discovered in Ohio.
As did Cnemidopyge nuda, aka "Murchison" trilobites, commonly found in Wales.
While this Walliserops trilobite is from the Devonian period, and was discovered in Morocco.
As is this Scutelluidae trilobite
And this fossil of a partially enrolled Phacops trilobite appearing alongside a Holardops mesocristata.
And finally, this “Devil Horned” Cyphaspis trilobite.
This particular Seal of Solomon appears to originate from the The Grimoire of Pope Honorius, first published at the end of the 17th century in France. In that text, it is referred to as the "Grand Pentacle of Solomon" despite quite obviously featuring a hexagram, as is typical. The six pointed star is surrounded by esoteric names for God, in keeping with the symbol's intended usage by a priest.