Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/96

 1858 Manchester Loan Collection, in a work edited by J. B. Waring (Plate XVI); but in this work it was described as the property of Queen Victoria, and as sent from Windsor Castle.

Of Italian fashion and workmanship, about 1650. Wallace Collection (Laking Catalogue, No. 505)

Made en suite with the rapier illustrated in Fig. 1486. Wallace Collection (Laking Catalogue, No. 506)

There are many fine cup-hilted rapiers in the Wallace Collection; but the great majority are somewhat composite, the pommel not belonging to the cup, the grip added, etc. Moreover, with them are associated parrying daggers, very much like the rapiers in decoration, but none of which are actually en suite with any rapier, with the exception of an Italian main gauche dagger and rapier, Nos. 505 and 506 (Figs. 1486 and 1487). The characteristics of the two weapons are the deep cup form and oviform pommel of the earlier XVIIth century fashion combined with a decoration of scrollwork and coats of arms in the fashion of 1650, an interesting example of retention of form and advance in ornamentation. The shield of arms introduced into the hilt seems to be of Portuguese origin; but the fashion and workmanship of the rapier and dagger hilt are essentially Italian. The finest cup-hilted rapier of mid-XVIIth century fashion which the Wallace Collection possesses is of the Spanish fashion, No. 583 (Fig. 1488). Although the hilt is of the proportions of the Spanish type we rather suspect that, as in the case of the Stuyvesant rapier and dagger (Figs. 1483 and 1484), Italian workmen were responsible for the enrichment. The whole hilt is very accurately and