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Lot 330A
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19th C. An XI Light Cavalry Saber - Napoleonic Hilt, Spanish Inscribed Blade
19th C. An XI Light Cavalry Saber - Napoleonic Hilt, Spanish Inscribed Blade
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Western Europe, Napoleonic light cavalry tradition, modele An XI hilt with later associated Spanish-inscribed blade (composite), ca. 1802–1850 CE. A light cavalry saber in the modele An XI manner, a genuine Napoleonic-pattern hilt now married to a shorter foreign blade by a later hand, a documented composite of the kind that filled the saddle-scabbards of working horsemen. The hilt is the real thing: cast brass three-branch guard sweeping from a down-turned, ball-finialed quillon to a brass backstrap and capstan, all softened by genuine handling. The grip survives in its original wooden core sheathed in horn and bound with twisted copper wire, and it rides in a two-ring iron scabbard. The blade is the intrigue, finer and shorter than a trooper's standard and bearing a Spanish legend, POR LOS with a Toledo abbreviation along one face and ANO 1811 along the other. The 1811 is the blade's own inscription, commemorative rather than the date of the assembled sword. Size of blade (along outer edge): 30.6" L x 1.2" W (77.7 cm L x 3.0 cm W); of sword (without sheath): 33.5" L x 4.6" W (85.1 cm L x 11.7 cm W); (with sheath): 36.7" L x 4.6" W (93.2 cm L x 11.7 cm W).

The modele An XI light cavalry saber, regulated in the eleventh year of the French Republican calendar (1802 to 1803), became the defining sidearm of the hussars and chasseurs who carried Napoleon's campaigns across Europe. Its three-branch brass guard and curved blade proved so sound that the form outlived the Empire and was copied or adapted by armies across the continent, Spain among them, in the decades after 1815.

This example is best understood as an honest composite rather than a single regulation issue. The hilt is genuine and intact, period-consistent throughout: a wooden core sheathed in horn (a minor loss of horn revealing the wood beneath) and bound in twisted copper wire, with a brass guard worn by real use. The blade, however, was made for a different mount. Its fuller terminates well short of the point, the mark of an original short blade rather than a cut-down trooper's blade, and the tang sits undersized within the grip. Foreign by fit and short by design, it was adapted to this An XI hilt by a later hand. No factory mark is present, and no Spanish regulation model of this form is recorded for 1811, so the ANO 1811 inscription should be read as commemorative or associative, anchoring the blade's voice to the Peninsular War years without dating the assembled sword.

Provenance: private Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA collection, acquired in 2024 via descent; ex-private Louisiana, USA collection

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Item # 203314

  • Condition: Good. Blade and sheath are not original to hilt and fit slightly loose. Indentations and small tear to sheath inhibiting blade from fitting completely. Some splitting and losses to horn covering. Rubbing to inscription and light wear throughout. Blade still retains some sharpness. Inscription likely made at a later date.

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by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Artemis Fine Arts

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