AUCTIONS IMPERIAL JUNE 2020 ARMS & ARMOR
Lot 201:
Description
Very fine Epirot work, the hilt in classical Persianate style, the grips with fine twisted silver wire wrap and separately-applied embossed, engraved and gilt pommel cap, the faceted and engraved silver guard with gilding and quillon terminals wrought as scallop shells. The superb long, curved blade single-edged and T-backed, with pronounced yelman and wrought of fine wootz with elaborate gold inlaid panels at the forte, spine and base of the yelman, including GOD’S BLESSING! In its scabbard covered entirely in fine silver elaborately embellished in rococo motifs, the suspension bands with gilded centers en suite with the guard. Bearing a paper tag inscribed, LORD BYRON’S SILVER SABER SWORD/ DR. S.G. HOWE COL / H. RICHARDS LOAN. Early 19th century. Very minor rubbing to blade. George Gordon Byron, Sixth Lord Byron, was England’s greatest Romantic Era poet. He led an adventurous, often dangerous, existence and at age 35 journeyed to Greece to join the revolution and fight the Ottomans. Given command over a brigade of Suliots, he was preparing an attack on the Ottoman stronghold of Lepanto, but died in Missolonghi on April 19, 1824. Byron’s passing was mourned throughout the world. He became a national hero to the Greeks and his renown as a poet grew in England, Europe and America. Samuel Gridley Howe M.D. (1801-1876,) noted American abolitionist, was so inspired by Lord Byron’s cause, that he sailed for Greece in 1824 with the intention of fighting by Byron’s side. Howe arrived just weeks after Byron succumbed to fever; he nonetheless fought for six years against the Ottomans at Missolonghi, Crete, and other locations, and assisted Byron’s close friend and protégé, Alexandros Mavrokordatos, among other Greek notables. Howe acquired Byron’s helmet, sword and a number of other military effects before returning to the U.S. in 1830; the helmet was repatriated to Greece in 1926, donated to the Ethnographic Museum, Athens (now the National Historical Museum) by Howe’s daughter, Maud Howe Elliot, which memorialized her father’s service to Greece as well. Howe’s eldest daughter, Laura Elizabeth Richards, celebrated American author, presented the saber to her son, Henry Howe Richards, at the beginning of the 20th century. The images of a portrait of Samuel Gridley Howe as a Greek freedom fighter, painted by John Elliot c. 1830, now housed at Brown University, are shown for reference only and are not included with this lot. Overall length 93cm. Condition II
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