Exquisite workmanship and lavish use of precious materials
distinguish this sword as a princely weapon and exemplifies the
opulence and refinement of Ottoman luxury arts. Almost identical
to a yatagan (now in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul) made in
1526–27 by the court jeweler Ahmed Tekel, for the Ottoman sultan
Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–66), this sword was
undoubtedly made in the same imperial workshop. The gold
incrustation on the blade depicts a combat between a dragon and
a phoenix against a background of foliate scrolls. These
figures, like the gold-inlaid cloud bands and foliate scrolls on
the ivory grips, are Chinese in inspiration, and were probably
introduced into Ottoman art through contacts with Persia. This
sword is one of the earliest known yatagans, distinctly Turkish
weapons characterized by a double-curved blade and a hilt
without a guard. Yatagans were commonplace in Turkey and the
Balkans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and served as
sidearms for the elite troops known as ja