Enamel hilt - age and place

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Tim,
It is most likely 19th century, but I think you are wrong when you say Deccan, Hyderabad. I think it is more likely Rajasthan/Mewar, due to the colours the different districts were specializing in, mentioned in Jacob and Hendley’s book ‘Jeypore Enamels’, and due to the fact that the finest centres for enamel lay to the north.
There are a few interesting things about this hilt. Mostly when you see a tulwar hilt it has the same decoration all over, but not this one, as the hilt, the top of the disc and the dome have the same decorations and colours, but under the disc the decoration and the colours are quite different, here it is clearly a water plant, single petal lotus’s most likely, with butterflies. I have often wondered when I saw a different decoration on the underside of the disc. Why was it made differently, so only the owner could see it, and then only when he turned the tulwar upside down? It must have been more expensive due to the bigger number of colours, as it would have to go more time into the oven for the melting process, so it must have had a special meaning to the owner. You now and again see the same change in decoration on hilts decorated in koft gari.

Hi Brian,
Another thing, which makes me say north India, is the transparency and the way the colours are fating, this was very difficult to make, and I think it was only made in the north. For a long time the enamellers could not make the past themselves, so they got it from Lucknow – but it was the furnace job which made the difference.