A fine Mughal gold-koftgari watered-steel saddle axe (tabarzin)
North India, 17th/ 18th Century
of typical form, the haft decorated in gold overlay with a spiralling band containing an undulating floral vine, the head of watered steel, finely chiselled with arabesques and floral motifs
60.2 cm. long
Footnotes:
Provenance
Private UK collection, formed in the mid 20th Century, and thence by descent.

This finely decorated saddle axe relates to an example in the Furusiyya Collection (see Bashir Mohamed, The Arts of the Muslim Knight, p 269, no. 159). The floral decoration on the top and bottom of the head confirm an Indian, rather than a Persian, attribution. Another example with chiselled arabesques in the Victoria & Albert Museum is published in Robert Elgood, Islamic Arms and Armour, London, 1979, p. 119, no. 120.