‡A RARE SCANDINAVIAN COMBINED RAPIER AND MUSKET REST, 17TH CENTURY, PROBABLY NORWEGIAN with long slender tapering blade of flattened-diamond section, fitted at the base with a wooden collar carved in low relief, fitted in its early life with an iron head of U-shaped form with finely chiselled ram's head finial, tapering socket pierced for a match hook (missing) and decorated beneath with foliage, in its wooden scabbard carved en suite with the wooden collar, decorated with horizontal panels of allegorical figures in low relief including a King, warriors and trophies-of-arms (small chips, repaired in three places), and spiked iron shoe decorated en suite with the socket, and with brass inventory tag '472' 103.2 cm; 40 5/8 in blade Provenance George F. Harding Jr., Chicago Transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1982, Acc. No. 1982.2855 A note in the museum archives by Stephen V. Grancsay states that this was originally a sword cane, later adapted to a musket rest and exhibited at the Columbian World Exhibition, Chicago, 1893.