Islamic Weapons at V&A Museum
 

Here are some nice Islamic weapons at V&A (Victoria and Albert) museum. I tried to capture some interesting details of blades, hilts, fittings, wootz pattern etc. Always wanted to do that, but the lighting at V&A is so dim, so I was unable to. Today I tried a new camera at 'Night Mode', so the pictures look at least decent. Hope you'll enjoy them.

More pics...

Thank you for sharing the photos of the very nice displays of these impressive weapons Alex. It's good to know they are doing well with maintaining the presence of these fine pieces...I was a bit concerned after Anthony North retired a number of years ago, and I think there was a lull in things for a bit after.
Do you know offhand whether they have published anything new on the collections?
All the best,
Jim

Thank you, Jim
I am not aware of any recent V&A publications. The collection, of course, has many other fascinating items, and the metalware objects are particularly fascinating, and it certainly would be nice to have a comprehensive catalogue or book on the subject.

Just a few more pics; there's never too much of good things ...

Very nice but I think if you keep going my 'puter will short circuit! :eek:

Great pictures! Thank you a lot!

I've learned to use a napkin.

Great pictures Alex, thank you.

Wonderful pictures! Thank you very much. If you have more to share, my computer can take it, though I may suffer overload :) .

Very impressive, and thanks for sharing. I have a copy of the book by Anthony North of the V & A displays, but by the looks of this lot, there needs to be another book published!
Regards Stuart

Alex,

Thank you for the very nice picture, and the ’night mode’ is an excellent idea. Not many would have thought of it – at least I didn’t when I was at David’s Collection last month.

Jens

Very nice pictures. Great stuff at the V&A, but as mentioned some comprehensive catalogues would be a good idea.

Regards.

Oooohh... very nice. Really museums get some of the nicest pieces which ordinary collectors rarely get their hand on :p . Also, do you have pictures of the plaques or descriptions on the weapons, I'd like to know more about them and the regions they are from. I see Iran and also India (kattars obviously, but also Indian style hilts) and ofcourse the weapons getting lumped under islamic though they might not be.

I particularly like the forearm-guards (bazu-bands I think), especially the one with grape vines and a suitable green background. Also the third pic. sword seems be some kind of royalty due to umbrella symbol but to me the layout looks crude (the square diamond in the middle is noticably at an offset) and not good finish, although I suppose the sheer value of the stones makes up for it :shrug: .

Thank you, Alex, very nice material.
Regards

Gonzalo

Great photo's of some beautiful pieces :)

Thanks to all for the nice comments! I am glad you enjoyed the pictures.

Wepnz, I do have pictures of the description plaques, but did not want to post them for several reasons: 1) not to 'overload' some computers:-); 2) the museum descriptions can not be as accurate as one might think. For example, a spectacular Kilij in the British Museum is labeled as "Yataghan" :-) (see my earlier post with British Museum pictures). As Ward and Jens just mentioned in the other posts - the good books are the best references, in addition to one's own research and studies. This is profusely true!
I think that all weapons in this collection can be considered as Islamic, and Indo-Persian for sure. The 'umbrella' gold inlay is the Royal Mughal emblem. You correctly noticed "non-perfectness" of some stone settings, and this brings up a good point - why a royal-quality weapon would have a crude feature like this? I think the 'mentality' of the old masters was quite different, and what we consider crude now could have been a sign of hand-made quality and beauty of 'non-perfection'. I recently saw a Kremlin exhibit of Ottoman and Persian gifts to the Tsar in the Freer Collection, and the most prized weapons of the 16-18th Century Russian Court had the same "crudely set' stones, and even worst:-). I am sure these masters could have set them up in the perfect geometrical order, but they did not. I think there is a reason behind it.

I stopped by the Victoria & Albert Museum on Friday to look at their collection. Whilst not as comprehensive as the Wallace Collection I certainly found enough to keep me happy. Alex has done an excellent job of photographing the items on display. There are a few other pieces dotted about, I've added my photos of those below.

These photos are slightly smaller than my recent addition to the Wallace Collection thread so hopefully won't cause too many computers to overload!

I took photos of the respective information for each piece in the collection, and can provide details if anyone would like to know more.

Shimmerxxx, thank you for the pictures! I am very interested in the description of both Keris.

An other view

Great pics thanks very much. Having access to these free museum's was one of the highlights of London while I lived there.

An excellent photographic library of the worlds finest collections are building up on EAAF.

....very nice, thank you.........................jimmy

AAAHHH! WHAT GREAT TOYS! :D