This is wonderful! not just this very exciting example of espada de taza!! but great images as well as the listing of threads pertinent to researching this example! This brings to the fore the fact that for some reason, too many resist using the SEARCH feature here, which has some of the most comprehensive material on most arms topics in the great discussions we have had over the past 25 years.
Im glad you have done that work already by linking some of the most salient of these discussions!! Actually this is FUN! Its like being in a class where the professor literally provides the direct detail for answers!!! yay!
I know you are well seasoned collector, so I appreciate you withholding your own observations, which adds to the suspense, again truly fun and masterful.
Actually this sword fits well into a topic I have researched many years, and involves subject matter of a paper I am presently writing, so even more exciting for me.
This is clearly of Spanish cuphilt of 17th c. form, and of course with all the nuanced variation experienced in these as they were produced by many artisans in locations in Spain, Portugal, and quite possibly many even in the Spanish Netherlands (1556-1714). This example has the character of either colonial or more rural manufacture and seems of latter 17th c.
What brings it more into the colonial realm is that the blade appears to be KNECHT of Solingen. (Wallace Collection, J. Mann, 1962, p.268; p.325, A520, A641).
Johann Peter Knecht was a Solingen trader in blades, not a maker, from 18th c. 1770, his son Peter Knecht was b. 1796 . It is unclear whether he carried forward.
Knecht purveyed the blades carrying the famed 'Spanish motto' which were provided for the Spanish colonies in the Americas from dates unclear in the 18th c., but the 1770s period he is known in business these were well in circulation.
Toledo had been all but defunct for blade making from late 17th c until new production began c.1780s so Solingen had been filling in the gaps.
This is of course an 'arming blade' rather than rapier blade, so more of a sword for a military officer.
As noted in previous discussions, some of which are in the thread bibliography noted, the rapier had largely given way to the small sword in Europe and primarily the French school of fence. However Spain held true to its tradition of the cuphilt form, well into and through the 18th century, even somewhat longer in the colonies of New Spain.
As often seen in the Wallace collection, there are often older hilts mounted with newer blades, and this convention was not exclusive to Spain, but other countries of course as well, typically with officers and those of high station.
This seems the case with this wonderful example of Spanish cuphilt.
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