Hunting Sword and Scabbard

hilt, Japanese, made for the European market

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 376

The European taste for Asian designs and materials was particularly strong in the early eighteenth century. European-style sword hilts made of shakudō, an alloy of copper and gold that was popular in Japan for sword fittings, appear to have been made at Deshima for the Dutch East India Company, which exported them to Holland to be fitted out with European blades.

Hunting Sword and Scabbard, Steel, copper-gold alloy (shakudō), gold, wood, ray skin, hilt, Japanese, made for the European market

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