going back to the chillanum posted here from the al sabah collection. i've always found this piece intriguing as it was moghul art at its most oppulant. interesting point though, in that its connection with janhangir is assumed (and quite rightly so). in his memoirs, he describes a dagger made and presented to him in 1619 by the masters Puran and Kalyan. he describes thie artistry involved in the dagger and the importance attributed it by him and his court. the quality of the al sabah piece leaves little doubt that this could be the same dagger. both masters were highly rewarded. this information is known and recorded but i found an interesting miniature that has some conection.
the artist ramdas recorded an event in miniature form, which was part of the padshahnama folio. painted around 1640. the event it depicted was the return of prince khurram (later, shah jahan) to the court of jahangir from his victories from the mewar campaign during the deccan wars. this event was recorded on 10th october 1617 in the jahangirnama by jahagir, and he describes embracing his son after a seperation of 11 months and 11 days. the dagger shah jahan wears is of particular interest. this painting was created some 30 years after the event, but i wonder if this could possibly have been the same dagger (wrongly noted as 1619).
pure supposition of course, and there is no reason to doubt that there were a number of similar daggers created for the mughal emperor. its interesting that this exists in painted form from a contemporary time.
this form of dagger hilt is known as the jahangiri fashion, as he asked his master craftsmen
'to make dagger-hilts of a shape that was approved at this time'
in the wallace collection, a similar dagger exists which no doubt came from the same court. the hilt is solid gold and set with diamonds and flowers of rubies with emerald leaves.
surely this too could be a contender for the one particular dagger that janhangir revered highly enough to fully describe in 1619
'some of the flowers looked as if a skillful painter had depicted them in black lines round it with a wonder-working pencil. in short, it was so delicate that i never wish it to be apart from me for a moment.'
unless he is fickle and prone to change his mind on a regular basis, i doubt if he would have given this piece to shah jahan so readily, even though he had just annexed the whole of the deccan for him
