Swords in Art -- what is this?

[arsendaday]

Hello All

As soon, as I looked at the painting I thought of the Tatar Saber. I have couple of observations that mostly answer to mariusgmioc's post and that's the reason I quote it.

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

Before going deeper into this, I think we should notice that the blade in the painting DOES NOT FIT the scabbard where it is about to be inserted in!

Here is a link with the sword and the scabbard. Very much alike the one in the painting! And it fits.

http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4101

The painter started with a curvature, but then realised that the curvature wouldn't bring the tip of the blade to the opening of the scabbard and since he couldn't simply erase the blade and paint a new one, he simply made the adjustment to the curvature. As simple as that.

Usually painters start their work with outlines and the sketches so there would be very little (if any) mistakes on the final painting. And of course he could erase any part of the painting while the paint is wet, or paint over it.

An indication regarding the skill of the painter can also be derived from the position of the hand holding the sword...

That's exactly how one would hold the sword to be able to put the tip of the sword in. At the recurve he would move his hand a little bit and continue with the rest of the sword.

To answer the question as to how would Europeans know about the Tatar sabers; here is an article in Wikipedia about Lipka Tatars:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipka_Tatars

And the timeframe matches.

IMHO, For an European (Italian) painter to paint a scene that took place in the Middle East, a good reference for a foreign weapon could be Tatar Sabre that would look exotic (at least to Europeans) and could have been used by Tatars in Ottoman army, who (Ottoman Empire) occupied Jerusalem during the time of the painting.