Grosse Messer / Kriegsmesser

Austrian, Late 15th Century

With shortened single-edged fullered blade deeply struck with a cross mark on one side at the forte, hilt comprising straight quillons of tapering oval section each with a double turn at the end, upturned fluted side-guard riveted through the quillon-block, and wooden grip of tapering ovoidal section with central flute along each side and wrapped in tooled dark brown leather (some damage, iron parts with some pitting)

82.8 cm. blade

The best-known sword of this type is the one made for the Emperor Maximilian by Hans Sumersperger of Hall in the Tyrol in 1496. Similar swords called Kriegsmesser are depicted being carried by swordsmen in Hans Burgkmair's famous woodcut series The Triumph of Maximilian, published about 1515, No. 38 and seem to have been used by the Imperial guard in Vienna under the Emperors Frederick III and Maximilian I. For information see O. Gamber, Die Mittelalterlichen Blankwaffen der Wiener Waffensammlung, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen In Wien, vol. 57, 1961, pp. 30-33

Source: www.bonhams.com/auctions/19002/lot/157/