Officer's Sword Member Of The Institute Of Egypt Empire / Consulate Period 18th Century

Rare officer's sword, member of the Egyptian Institute created in 1798
The Egyptian Institute was created in 1798 following Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign.
This organization, created on the model of the French Academy, aimed to organize scientific and artistic research in Egyptology.
The 52 members were provided with a uniform and a sword unique to each of the 36 officer members.
The commission was chaired by Gaspard Monge and Napoleon Bonaparte was vice-president.
Napoleon's sword from the Egyptian Institute is kept at Malmaison, another model is in the Louvre collections.
Composed mainly of scientists and scholars, the institute also included a few soldiers.
Given the warlike attributes of this sword, we can conjecture that it was that of a soldier probably a member of the staff of the Egyptian campaign.
The sword is decorated on the keyboard with a Roman gladiatorial scene, the spindle plated with fluted mother-of-pearl surrounded by chased bronze with acanthus leaf motifs, In the center of the spindle, a bronze Egyptian bust in traditional dress Egyptian is crowned with a torchere decorated with sphyngeal wings reminiscent of ancient Greece.
He is wearing a Turkish hat.
This amalgamation of iconographic elements evoking both the Orient and antiquity is a testimony to the fantasized idea that Westerners had of the Orient. The guard is decorated with a lion's head.
The blade is engraved, blued and one-third gilded.
French work between 1798-1801, date of creation and end of the institute

Total length 95 cm
Blade length 83 cm