Late scholar Philippe Gilles Rene Missillier spent more than 50 years amassing one of the world’s most impressive collections of Islamic arts and armoury. His collection represents five centuries of technological, military and artistic development, tracking the evolution of weaponry.
That collection is now being displayed in Dubai in an exhibition running at Sotheby’s Dubai until Friday. It will then be auctioned in London on April 29.
Missillier’s collection includes more than 100 items. It includes ivory hilts, gem-set daggers and rifles, shoulder guards adorned with calligraphy and axes in laid with silver.
One of its most alluring objects, however, is a sword.
The World Capturer is a mesmerising piece of military history, even before taking the sword’s provenance into account.
A curved blade of pattern-welded steel, the sword is inscribed at the spine across four cartouches. Its forte is inlaid with the customary parasol or chhatri, a symbolic Mughal representation of the right to rule. The sword’s hilt is finely chiselled and decorated with floral motifs and turquoise enamel. Even its scabbard is stunning. Made of wood, it is covered in red silk with floral patterns embroidered with green silk and gold.
But what makes World Capturer particularly interesting is that it once belonged to Shah Jahan, who famously built the Taj Mahal in India. The sword’s name is a nod to the Mughal emperor's skill as a military leader. Of course, the Shah’s reign, which lasted between 1629 and 1658, was also regarded as a period of remarkable culture, when Persian and Indian sensibilities merged with to create a new artistic, visual and architectural language. The World Capturer is a hallmark of this aesthetic. The sword has an estimated sale price between £600,000 and £800,000 ($774,028 and $1,032,037).
“It’s one of the most interesting pieces in the sale,” says Benedict Carter, a specialist at Sotheby’s.
“The sword has an inscription marking it as one of Shah Jahan’s personal swords, but it is also verified by its appearance in the journals of Niccolao Manucci, the Venetian traveller, who actually recorded this sword itself and its name. It carries quite an aura when you think it was held in the hands one of the great Mughal emperors.”
The sword’s more recent provenance is also interesting. In the 19th century, it was acquired by Charles John Canning, the first viceroy of India. “Then it came down to the Lascelles family and then the Harewood house in the 1990s.”
Each of the objects within the collection has a comparably captivating history, even if they don’t all boast a royal lineage.
“There's quite a broad range in material, but also dates and functionality,” says Carter. “You're going from fairly early 15th century arms and armour, which are very different than later Ottoman pieces, which are prestigiously decorated.”
Pieces from the 15th and early 16th centuries represent the oldest pieces within collection. Among these is a turban helmet from Eastern Anatolia or Northwest Persia that dates to the late 15th century. The helmet is a masterpiece of functionality and beauty, inscribed with thuluth calligraphy, as well as vine motifs. It also bears, above the right eye, the mark of Saint Irene, the church in the courtyard of Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace that was famously used as an arsenal.
“It was used as arsenal for the holding of weapons used by the Ottoman armies, but also those taken in battle from other armies,” Carter says. The helmet has an estimated sale price of between £150,000 and £200,000.
There are other pieces of armour from the same time period and which were also branded with the mark of Saint Irene. “Actually all of these early pieces that we have, which include horse armour, the turban helmet, couple of leg guards and torso body armour have these stamped marks,” Carter says. “It’s interesting from a historical perspective, as well as a technical one and as an art form.”
Another highlight is a 17th-century shield from the Ottoman Empire. It is made of wicker with a protective metal dome in the centre. Wicker was widely used across the Islamic world for shields due to its abundance and light weight, however relatively few have survived. Several examples came to Europe as battle trophies. They ended up in Central European museums through the collections of aristocratic families who fought against the Ottomans. Yet, this particular one from Missillier’s collection is significant, especially due to its condition. It has an estimated value of between £60,000 and £80,000.
"They are a rarity because they're fairly fragile,” Carter says. “They are made of painted wicker. They are not something come up often. This one is quite remarkable. This one still has a lot of colour. It was taken in Austria in the siege of Vienna in 1683. Most of these pieces tend to come through European aristocratic families who were present at the battle and in the campaigns against the Ottoman Turks in the end of the 17th century.”
The daggers within the collection are also stunning in their craftsmanship. Among them is a Mughal-era dagger from the 18th century that has a jade hilt carved into a horse. It has an estimated sale price of £50,000 to £70,000. Other carved daggers in the collection have been fashioned into camels and antelopes, showing the expertise of artisans who were designing weaponry. Elsewhere, there are rare Mamluk pieces from the sultanate that ruled across Egypt, the Levant and Hejaz in the 13th to 16th centuries, as well as items from the Safavid, Ottoman and Aq Qoyunlu empires.
