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Originally Posted by 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.
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
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.
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. |
1. Yes, the Tatar saber you are talking about is "very much alike the one in the painting" but at the same time IT IS ESSENTIALLY DIFFERENT. The sword in the painting clearly displays a reverse curve towards the tip, while the Tatar saber does not (the Tatar saber has only a narrower tip portion).
And yes, the Tatar saber fits its scabbard but the one in the painting does not, exactly because of its reverse curvature.
2. "That's exactly how one would hold the sword to be able to put the tip of the sword in."... Well, maybe, but only if the sword has the edge on its concave side of the blade, or if it is used like a Shotel. However, for a normal saber, the grip is with the fingers towards the edge side, and the thumb towards the spine side of the blade.
3. I do not know whether the painter started with a sketch and how detailed the sketch was. Moreover, I do not know how easily can a painting error be corrected. I am only speculating that the reverse curve in this case is simply the result of a technical painting error that the painter didn't consider important enough to correct without visible trace.