Hand-and-a-Half Sword (c. 1550): Art, History and Details

Hand-and-a-Half Sword (c. 1550) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A hand-and-a-half sword is a large sword with a double-edged blade and a long grip so it could accommodate both hands. It was also know as a bastard sword. It would primarily be used with one hand, but if desired, the second hand could be used to give extra weight to the blow.

Object facts

• Title: Hand-and-a-Half Sword
• Date: c. 1550
• Culture: Germany, mid-16th century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel, blued pommel and quillions, leather grip
• Dimensions: Overall: 123.9 cm (48 3/4 in.); Blade: 92.3 cm (36 5/16 in.); Quillions: 24.8 cm (9 3/4 in.); Grip: 30.5 cm (12 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1506

A detail from the museum

There are three unidentified marks on the fuller of this blade.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], 1900.
• 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.