French Ancien Régime Hussar Officers Lion Head Sabre.
Jan 11, 2020 14:54:53 GMT
Post by Uhlan on Jan 11, 2020 14:54:53 GMT
Introduction.
I bought this sabre somewhere in the spring of 2019 and had it on hold until the second Christmas day of that year. Time to do something about it.
The hilt.
It is an Ancien Régime Hussar Officers sabre with the typical gilded brass hilt of the type, but with an extraordinary large pommel in the shape of a lion head.
I have a lion head pommel from a Volontair sabre in my spare parts box, of standard proportions and of rather mediocre quality. It is as large as the lion head on the Prussian M1889 OID for instance, so of common size.
This Hussar lion is almost twice as large.
It is also a work of art, a small sculpture, by itself. I wonder who the artist was who made it.
According to l'Hoste (See page 32 of ,, Armes Blanches'') lion heads of this quality were only to be found on Officers sabres of the period shortly before and during the first years of the Revolution.
During the Ancien Régime these quality lion heads could be found on Officers sabres of various branches of the Cavalry, see for example Fig.471 on page 264 of Les Sabres by l'Hoste, The Garde National, the Regiment du Roy, diverse Marine Officers sabres and on Volontaires Nationaux Officers sabres during the Monarchie Constituelle.
The guillon is slightly bend upwards. As there isn't any evidence of damage this may be intentional. This type of guillon is typical for the Louis XVI and early Revolution period Hussar sabres, as is the decorative knob at the end of it and the straight and bevelled langets.
The grip is wired with several thick and thin twisted strands of formerly silver plated brass wire.
A pin goes from the back strap through the thick guard and so holds the two together.
The blade.
In this case the blade is 76 cm long. Hussar blade lengths seem to vary greatly. A short dig into Hussar sabre blade lengths through various periods gave the following random results:
1790 Ancien Régime-76 cm. Revolution-72.8(!)-80 and 80.5 cm. AN IV-76.5 and 80 cm. Empire I-78cm.
The blade is of the Montmorency type with the narrow fuller under the flat spine.
The large fuller though goes right up into the tip and is there enclosed by the ridges of the cutting and false edges.
This design can also be seen on a later 1806, non Montmorency, Hussar Officers blade.
The signature.
The blade is signed ,,Klingenthal'' in cursive script.
There are two Klingenthal signatures around the time just before the Revolution. One in cursive script like here and one in capital script dating slightly earlier from just before 1792.
L'Hoste shows an example of the cursive signature on page 230, in the small image to the left, in his ,,Armes Blanches''. He states that this particular signature was only in use for a short while, namely in the period of 1793 to 1794. The etch of the Fleur de Lys in the entrelac confirms this date. Needless to say that the Officer owner of this sabre took quite a chance with this symbol of the Bourbons on his blade, even during this early stage of mob rule.
And another example of the signature in capitals and the Fleur de Lys.
The scabbard.
The scabbard was made of very thick brass and as I find very faint straight braze lines over the spine and the belly, I think it was probably cast in two halves.
This would explain the surface covered in what looks like casting skin, like one often sees on the inside of cast iron or steel sabre baskets and its unusual heft of 775 grams.
Though there are three very small dents and the ring mounts show the usual wear, the scabbard is in pristine condition for its age.
The drag, the inside of the mouth piece and the two distance screws are the only iron parts.
It has wooden liners.
The numbers.
LOA:95.5 cm.
LS: 90 cm.
BL: 76 cm.
BW: 38 mm.
BT: 10 - 5 - 5 - 4.5 - 2 mm.
WOA: 1585 grams.
WS: 810 grams.
POB: 11.5 cm. That pommel sure has some pull back!
Work.
The blade had black patches of old rust and lots of hard grime on the high polish.
This gunk was quite easily removed with some 180. To my surprise there was hardly any pitting.
With the 180 grid done it was quite easy to get the polish back to its original state.
The blue and gild panels were covered in a mix of old wax, dirt and rust which had turned them into two strips of a dead brown-purple colour.
I used my 20 x enhancer, which always does a great job when I am cleaning archaeological finds and lots of thinner and Qtips to remove this crust. To dig out the old hard and waxy mix of hand oils, dirt, soot, verdigris and God knows what else from the depths of the etching and the lion head pommel I have a small digging and cutting tool that is perfect for these kind of jobs, but it still took a lot of time to remove this dirt from all those little crevasses, even with the aid of the 20 x.
The lion head pommel alone took the better part of a day to clean. All in all it went very well and though the blue is down to maybe 10 - 20% of the original, some of the astounding peacock blue now at least is visible again and the detailing of the lion head sculpture and the etch is much crisper than before.
Before the clean up.
This crisp detail is what the artist wanted to us to see, not that ill defined glob of gild and black and green goo. It is always a surprise how much of the fire gild still remains under these thick layers of obscuring dirt.
I must note that if this crust of dirt and the tiny nodules of black rust and verdigris is not removed, what remains of the fire gild will slowly be pushed off the object in question, whether it is a blade or a sculpture. What happens is that this dirt activates the bronze or steel as the gild is in places quite porous, copper or iron particles start to migrate to the surface and the consequence is that the gild is slowly pushed off the body. This can be seen in the image below with all those little black spots.
Once gild flakes are pushed off, rust and verdigris grow right over the surrounding gild and the cycle starts again.
And removal must be done by hand. The use of acids is prohibited as this will only activate the metal and in the end will just start the process again, this time much accelerated.
Conclusion.
In its time this must have been a quite splendid sabre. It still is in a way of course, but it is a pity the blue and gild panels didn't survive the onslaught of time and wrong headed cleaning a bit better. There is even evidence of sanding in the blue! Be it as it may, as a testament and witness to some major tragic events in history it has something important to say to all of us.
I am glad it found its way into my little collection so I could try to revive it to some extend of its former stature and save it from certain oblivion, hopefully for years to come.
Cheers.
Le Duc de Bercheny, founder of the French Hussars.
Notes.
French Army: www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=French_Army
French Hussars: www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=French_Army#Hussars