AN INTERESTING PAINTING

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by spiral

Somewhere on this forum from many years ago with many great paintings mostly by a French artist.

One was an old Arab warrior at rest with his hookah, with yataghan & shamshir featured.

Sadly I cant recall the artist name or the thread. {Different computer files lost...}

Spiral

I wonder if it might be in Elgood's book on Islamic firearms, there is some great art in there.
It seems often overlooked how important art can be in the study of weapons, and I think the late Nick Norman proved that beautifully in The Rapier and the Smallsword" . Here he used period portraiture to illustrate and assess dates and periods for many hilt forms and pommels .

While it seems that portraits typically offer reasonably reliable images as subjects usually wore their own arms, as with most art a degree of caution must be observed. Artistic license is virtually inherent and in many cases of dramatic illustration there can be certain latitude expected, case in point of course Rembrandt's Biblical works using Indonesian keris etc.
In much the same way many classical paintings in Italy with Biblical subjects used contemporary arms and armour.

By the same token, Ariel makes very good points about the various hosts of Cossacks, and along with not being an 'ethnic' group, but assemblages of various ethnicities, they indeed used a wide variety of personally favored arms.

Excellent image on that postcard Ibrahiim!!! I often forget that Cossacks were often in boats and ships in addition to their prowess of course on horseback . I think some of the most impressive exhibitions of their riding skills are with the 'djigtovka'(?) as I believe some scenes in the classic movie epic "Taras Bulba" showed. Naturally, all manner of exception can be taken with the better part of the movie, but I think the riding was authentic.