19th century gothic dagger?

[Ron Anderson]

Here's another one

http://www.armesanciennes.fr/index.php?eID=tx_cms_showpic&file=uploads%2Ftx_tem plavoila%2Fa180-5w.jpg&bodyTag=%3CBODY%20bgColor%3D%22black%22%3E& wrap=%3CA%20href%3D%22javascript%3Aclose%28%29%3B% 22%3E%20|%20%3C%2FA%3E&md5=f43a07d122faca5303c05ff 670cda368


I'd say mine is a very good example. A+ indeed.

Thank you everyone for your assistance. I'm pretty convinced about this one. It is as I expected a 19th century piece. It may even be mid rather than late 19th century. It's almost certainly French, but there's a chance that it's English.

[Ron Anderson]

commercial link removed.

[David]

From what i can tell this category of "Dague Romantique" seems a bit vague, but i would say that your example seems to fit well within it. I would take the "carried by prostitutes" line with a grain of salt as so far i can only find that as a line from sellers to entice sale. Do you have an academic reference to this use. Here is a link to a similar style dagger (different figure and motif) that was claimed "satanic" in nature.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ack+notre+dame
Here are some examples of what i could find on the web also described as "Dague Romantique".

[Ron Anderson]

Hi David

Thanks for posting those pictures. The scabbards in particular mirror the style of my piece.

I think you're right – it is a rather vague category, probably created in hindsight. I doubt at the time anyone would have thought of these as "romantic daggers". They reflect the romanticism of that period, I think, and have been labelled that way to identify them broadly to collectors, and perhaps to separate them from later fantasy daggers.

I can only speculate that the reason they were carried by prostitutes is that they were quite pretty and quite dramatic. Mine is a bigger example, but the smaller ones were also obviously easy to conceal, so useful for that kind of work.

I believe the manufacturers of these knives found a ready market among prostitutes, but they were no doubt used more widely too. As Mark noted, probably as letter openers.

This is guesswork. I have no hard evidence of this.

It is interesting that they seem confined largely to France - in fact, to such a degree that collectors elsewhere don't even really know about them.

There are one or two English examples I know about. But the English always ended up imitating the French, didn't they?

[Jim McDougall]

This very intriguing looking dagger seems to me 'made in the 19th century style' of romantic theme or allegorical daggers of these times. The term 'romantic' derives from the Gothic themes and novels popular in the time, and one of the popular subjects in image was of course Notre Dame cathedral. The gargoyle figure corresponds to these representations of lurking evil which decorate parts of the cathedral, with these legendary creatures usually a dragonlike beast with batlike wings.

Other daggers of this type have been discussed (such as the spirited discussion David linked from 2007) in which the Notre Dame theme also occurs, and there seem to be other theme type daggers of the mid to latter 19th century which form basis for many of these 20th century interpretations, as well as many of the French associations.

The link to the macabre may derive from the theme daggers produced in 16th century, where the 'dance of death' allegory was from the book published by Hans Holbein (the younger) in Lyon, and applied to the decoration of these daggers.

While many of these daggers invoke a foreboding appearance that seems to inspire many to label them satanic, thinking that these might be examples of the athame daggers used ceremonally, and better termed 'occult', these seem to be simply interpretive examples of the earlier theme daggers.
It seems some of these have brought some pretty amazing results when sold, however typically they seem to have had early blades from other weapons which added support to interesting provenance...but still the stories along with some of these are apocryphal at best.
The mention of fraternal and secret societies is well placed, and often unusual themed accoutrements have been used in all manner of regalia, so these kinds of attribution always have a degree of plausibility......by thier very nature though, research is pretty difficult

Still, these are intriguing in appearance and interesting pieces, always great for conversation!!

[Ron Anderson]

Thank you Jim

The question then is: is this 19th century or 20th?

I can't give a definitive answer to that. I have seen two of these gargoyles here in Sydney with subtle variation - one with its mouth open (mine) and the other its mouth closed.

Both have some age. The other had some damage to the scabbard. Mine was cleaned up by the person who sold it to me. Some of the silver plating has gone and the copper shines though. The blade shows signs of oxidation even though it's been cleaned up.

But age is hard to determine, as I am discovering daily. I have a gaucho here dated 1965 and the blade looks two hundred years old. I also have a briquet that seems to be a 100 years younger than I thought it was.

At the same time, I have an 18th century hunting sword from Austria in beautiful condition, with very little to suggest its age.

I will say that if this is a 20th century dagger, it is not a new one. If it is not antique, it is certainly vintage.

It is hard to see those subtle signs that suggest age over a photo. In these photos they have all been eliminated by the flash.

Regards
Ron

[fernando]

Dague de pute, bodice dagger, garter dagger, you name it.
Perhaps at a certain stage they were the favourite defence weapon of 'ladies of uncertain bed', when working in the tumultuos ambience of gambling houses and cabarets ... easy to conceal and not large enough for a lethal blow.
I guess Ron's example is already a product more directed to the tourist market, with that gargoyle touch. Probably XX century.
Interesting how the base of the blade ('ricasso') follows the shape of those XIX examples.

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