A 'TOWN' SWORD

IN THE MANNER OF GOTTFRIED LEYGEBE OF NUREMBERG, PROBABLY THIRD QUARTER OF THE 17TH CENTURY

Details

A 'TOWN' SWORD
In the manner of Gottfried Leygebe of Nuremberg, probably third quarter of the 17th Century
With slender double-edged rapier blade retaining traces of a stamped inscription within the single fuller on each side, silvered iron hilt chiselled with mounted horsemen in relief and in the round, the quillons with horse terminals issuing from monsters' mouths, and spirally fluted grip bound with silver wire
33in. blade

Provenance

William Randolph Hearst, St. Donat's Castle, Wales

Sotheby & Co., London , 12 June 1956, lot 69

Leopold Blumka

Lot Essay

Gottfried Leygebe was born in 1630 at Freystadt in Silesia. After working in Nuremberg he was in 1668 appointed Medallist, Coiner and Sculptor to the Elector of Brandenburg. He died in Berlin in 1668. Only one signed hilt by Leygebe is recorded: that on a sword in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. M 59-1947)

See A. Bruhn, Der Schwertfeger Gottfried Leygebe, 1945; J.F. Hayward, Swords & Daggers, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1963, plate 19; A.V.B. Norman, The Rapier & Small-Sword, 1460-1820, pp. 327-8

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