Officer's saber from the Chinese Navy for the Beiyang Fleet, Late 19th century. 32672

CHINESE NAVY OFFICER SWORD FOR THE BEIYANG FLEET, Late 19th Century. 32672

Gilt bronze hilt. Guard with a wide branch forming a shell decorated with fluted designs on a sandblasted background, featuring a molded medallion of a fouled anchor. Folding counter-guard. Pommel with a long lion head-shaped tang. Decorated ferrule with lines. Ivory shagreen-covered wooden grip, copper filigree. Brass pommel cap engraved with a marked "69" in metal (similar to the "sepa" on Japanese swords). Straight blade with hollow facets, length 80.5 cm, marked at the heel "HENRY / WILKINSON / PALL MALL / LONDON," adorned on two-thirds of its length on the obverse side with the armorial bearings of England, cartouches surrounded by vegetal motifs, a fouled anchor with a dragon entwining around it; on the reverse side, the armorial bearings of the Prince of Wales and cartouches framed by vegetal motifs. Blade shoulder engraved with a six-pointed star with a gilded medallion bearing the initials "MH." Blade back marked "36669." Black lacquered leather scabbard with three gilt bronze fittings with scalloped inner edges engraved with lines. Chape with protruding belt entry, raised stud for attaching the folding counter-guard and a medallion inscribed "WILKINSON / GUN & SWORD / MAKER / PALL MALL / LONDON." Gilt brass chape and central fitting with stud and belt loop. Scabbard tip terminated by a lyre-shaped chape.
All parts of this sword are marked with "69" for specimen "36669": hilt, grip, grip band, dragon head pommel cap, and on the blade tang.

China.
Late 19th Century.
Very good condition, some chipping on the scabbard varnish.

NOTE:
This model, derived from the British Navy model of 1827, was adopted by the British authorities of the "Chinese maritime customs" and specially produced for the Beiyang Fleet, one of the Chinese regional navies of the 19th century. This specimen is part of an order placed in 1899 with Wilkinson for this fleet, one of the regional Chinese fleets. I will publish extracts from the Wilkinson archives mentioning the serial number 36669, present on this item. Also attached will be a portrait of a Beiyang Fleet officer wearing this model.

To date, we know of only four examples of this sword:
- Two similar specimens are preserved at the Greenwich Museum, swords for British maritime customs officers, not for the Chinese navy.
- One identical specimen is on display in a Chinese museum.
- One sword in very poor conservation condition belongs to a private collection.
- The specimen offered in this listing.

HISTORY:
The Beiyang Fleet (traditional Chinese: 北洋艦隊; simplified Chinese: 北洋舰队; pinyin: Běiyáng Jiànduì) was one of the four modernized regional fleets of the Imperial Chinese Navy at the end of the Qing dynasty. These fleets were heavily subsidized by Li Hongzhang, the Viceroy of Zhili. The Beiyang Fleet quickly became the dominant fleet in the Far East before the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. By the late 1880s, the Beiyang Fleet was said to be "the best in Asia."
The establishment of the Beiyang Fleet dates back to 1871 when four ships from the southern provinces were transferred to the north to patrol the seas bordering northern China. Stationed in Weihai port, the Beiyang Fleet was initially considered the weakest of the four regional Chinese navies. This quickly changed when Li Hongzhang allocated the majority of marine funds to it. By 1884, on the eve of the Franco-Chinese War, the Beiyang Fleet was the second most significant regional fleet. By 1890, it had become the most prominent.
Unlike the other Chinese fleets, the Beiyang Fleet was mainly composed of warships imported from the German Empire and the United Kingdom. When the flagship vessels Dingyuan and Zhenyuan were purchased in Germany, the superiority of the Beiyang Fleet became evident, as Germany was then the emerging global power, rivaling the British Empire (which dominated the seas) through the production of its naval arsenals.
[...] In 1894, on the eve of the war with Japan, the Beiyang Fleet was the most powerful fleet in Asia.