Hunting Sword (c. 1760–70): Art, History and Details

Hunting Sword (c. 1760–70) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

No gentleman's hunting costume was complete without a hunting sword. These special sidearms, designed primarily as defense against dangerous game in the field, were also used to dispatch game at the end of a chase. It was a point of honor among aristocratic hunters to carve and section the game in the field, a further function for which these swords were well suited. They were often made as a set, or garniture, and included smaller knives, forks, and other implements for carving the carcass.

Object facts

• Title: Hunting Sword
• Date: c. 1760–70
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel; pierced and chiseled cast-iron hilt ; blade engraved
• Dimensions: Overall: 65 cm (25 9/16 in.); Blade: 52.9 cm (20 13/16 in.); Quillions: 8.9 cm (3 1/2 in.); Grip: 11.6 cm (4 9/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1686

A detail from the museum

Besides being viewed as a recreation for European nobility and an ancient and hereditary right, hunting was recognized as a necessary and pragmatic skill which supplied an additional source of food and dispatched animals which were considered a menace.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. Vol. 2, 16th century. [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.