Hanger (Hunting Sword) (late 1600s): Art, History and Details

Hanger (Hunting Sword) (late 1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jaspar Bongen the Younger (German, active late 1600s).

The work and its context

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

Damascening, the technique of hammering gold and silver wires into grooves cut to receive them, enlivens this sword's hilt. Further texture was added with wires to improve the user's grip, which allowed him to hunt with more control and accuracy. Hunting was a popular sport among the wealthy and many nobles owned tracts of forest, but peasants were prohibited from hunting on these lands.

Object facts

• Title: Hanger (Hunting Sword)
• Date: late 1600s
• Creator attribution: Jaspar Bongen the Younger (German, active late 1600s)
• Culture: Hilt: Italy (?); Blade: Germany, Saxony, late 16th-17th Century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel; gold and silver damascened hilt
• Dimensions: Overall: 73 cm (28 3/4 in.); Blade: 57.7 cm (22 11/16 in.); Quillions: 17.5 cm (6 7/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1629

A detail from the museum

The swordsmith's mark, a crowned stag visible on the blade below the hilt, is unidentified.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Manchester City Art Gallery. Exhibition of the Royal House of Tudor. [Manchester]: [Corporation of Manchester art gallery], 1897.
• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. Vol. 2, 16th century. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], [1900-1915].
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), and Bashford Dean. Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Arms and Armor. New York, February the sixth to April the sixteenth, MCMXI.: [Gilliss Press], 1911.

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.