NYC - Metropolitan Museum of Art - Yatagan

Yatagan, ca. 15251530
Workshop of Ahmed Tekelü (Iranian (?), active in Istanbul, ca. 1520-1530)
Turkish (Istanbul)
Steel, walrus ivory, gold, silver, rubies, turquoise,and pearls; L. overall 23 3/8 in. (59.3 cm) L. blade 18 3/8 in. (46.66 cm)

Exquisite workmanship and lavish use of precious materials distinguish this sword as a princely weapon. It is almost identical to a yatagan (Topkapi Palace, Istanbul) made in 1526 or 1527 by the court jeweler Ahmed Tekelü for the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520-66). There can be little doubt that the Metropolitan's sword was made in the same imperial workshop, probably for presentation to a high-ranking courtier.

The gold incrustation on the blade depicts a combat between a dragon and a phoenix against a background of foliate scrolls. These figures, like the gold-inlaid cloud bands on the ivory grip, are Chinese in origin and were probably introduced into Ottoman art through contacts with Persia. The extremely high relief of the delicately modeled goldsmith's work, and the use of rubies for eyes, silver for the dragon's teeth, and a pearl set into the phoenix's head, exemplify the opulence and refinement of Ottoman luxury arts.

This sword is one of the earliest known yatagans, distinctly Turkish weapons characterized by a double-curved blade and a hilt without a guard. Yatagans were commonplace in Turkey and the Balkans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and served as sidearms for the elite troops known as janissaries.

Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1993 (1993.14)

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The collection of armor, edged weapons, and firearms in The Metropolitan Museum of Art ranks with those of the other great armories of the world, in Vienna, Madrid, Dresden, and Paris. It consists of approximately 15,000 objects that range in date from about 400 B.C. to the nineteenth century. Though Western Europe and Japan are the regions most strongly represented--the collection of more than five thousand pieces of Japanese armor and weapons is the finest outside Japan--the geographical range of the collection is extraordinary, with examples from the Near East, the Middle East, India, Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and North America. The Arms and Armor Galleries were renovated and reinstalled in 1991 to display to better effect the outstanding collection of armor and weapons of sculptural and ornamental beauty from around the world.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's permanent collection contains more than two million works of art from around the world. It opened its doors on February 20, 1872, housed in a building located at 681 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Under their guidance of John Taylor Johnston and George Palmer Putnam, the Met's holdings, initially consisting of a Roman stone sarcophagus and 174 mostly European paintings, quickly outgrew the available space. In 1873, occasioned by the Met's purchase of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot antiquities, the museum decamped from Fifth Avenue and took up residence at the Douglas Mansion on West 14th Street. However, these new accommodations were temporary; after negotiations with the city of New York, the Met acquired land on the east side of Central Park, where it built its permanent home, a red-brick Gothic Revival stone "mausoleum" designed by American architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mold. As of 2006, the Met measures almost a quarter mile long and occupies more than two million square feet, more than 20 times the size of the original 1880 building.

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National Historic Register #86003556