Cup-Hilted Rapier (c. 1650): Art, History and Details

Cup-Hilted Rapier (c. 1650) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

For parrying, rapiers were often made with accompanying daggers as a matched set. The aristocracy's taste for rich and intricate styles of decoration led to extravagant gilding, chiseling, piercing, enameling, and silvering. The more costly or unusual these weapons appeared, the more they were desired by the clientele who commissioned them, not only for dueling but also as the ultimate accessory.

Object facts

• Title: Cup-Hilted Rapier
• Date: c. 1650
• Culture: Spain, Toledo
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: Pierced and chiseled steel;
• Dimensions: Overall: 122.9 cm (48 3/8 in.); Quillions: 26.7 cm (10 1/2 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1810

A detail from the museum

The guard is richly decorated with chiseled and pierced arabesques, an ornamental design consisting of intertwined flowing lines.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. Vol. 4, 17th to 19th century and a few pieces of iron work. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], [1900-1915].
• Gilchrist, Helen Ives. A Catalogue of the Collection of Arms & Armor Presented to the Cleveland Museum of Art by Mr. and Mrs. John Long Severance; 1916-1923. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1924.
• Fliegel, Stephen N. Arms and Armor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Museum, 1998.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.