A FINE DAGGER WITH SILVER GILT AND NIELLO HILT, MID-19TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY RUSSIAN with tapering

A FINE DAGGER WITH SILVER GILT AND NIELLO HILT, MID-19TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY RUSSIAN with tapering blade of watered steel, chiselled along the back-edge in the Turkish manner and decorated with a panel of gold scrollwork at the forte on each side, silver hilt finely cast and chased in low relief, comprising a pair of forward and back-canted slightly recurved quillons with hound`s head terminals issuant from a central block of oak foliage, solid grip decorated over its full surface with a geometric framework of gilt niello surrounding sprays of foliage, the pommel formed of vine fruit and foliage surmounted by a pheasant attacked by a fox, struck with a mark, probably French import mark for 1888, and remaining in very good condition throughout 33cm; 13in A hunting dagger with silver cross-piece decorated with the cypher of Tsar Alexander III, scabbard mounts each chased in a strikingly similar manner and with a tentative Russian attribution is preserved in the Gatchina Arsenal, see St Petersburg 2001, p. 97, no. 63.