Requiem propter gloriam immortalem

Dated: 1560

The #dagger that belonged to Grand Master de la Valette is to be brought to Malta on loan from the Louvre for a #Heritage #Malta exhibition coinciding with Malta’s EU Presidency.

The dagger, together with a sword, had been presented to the grand master by King Philip II of Spain after the victory of the Great Siege.  

Heritage Malta said the dagger and the sword, originally kept at the Grand Master’s Palace, were shown to the public once a year in a procession held on September 8 to mark the day when the Great Siege (1565) was lifted.

This tradition was held till 1797, since a year later the Maltese islands were occupied by French General Napoleon Bonaparte.

“Napoleon was very fond of military leaders, including de Valette. His ambition was to furnish a museum with possessions from conquered states. But while the sword was sent to the museum in France along with other artefacts, Napoleon decided to keep the dagger to himself. In fact after Bonaparte’s death the dagger was put on exhibit together with the sword at the Louvre,” Heritage Malta said.

The exhibition de Valette’s dagger will be held at the National Museum of Archaeology from March 18 till the end of June 2017. The dagger, which will be the main focus of the exhibition, will be accompanied by a selected number of other related exhibits from the national collection.

Napoleon models the spring collection of fighting Emperor wear of  1810.

Silver & Gold plated Bronze Dagger

Dated: mid-19th century

Culture: French

Medium: bronze, silver, gold

The dagger has a straight, double-edged blade with a double groove and a bronze grip and sheath that is silver-coated and partly gilded. The grip depicts a girl playing the lyre while the sheath is worked in bas-relief with two grotesque masks in the center and arm trophies and flags above and under. The dagger has curved and curled small quillons.

Anton Graff. Frederick II ‘the Great’ of Prussia. 1764.

Oil on canvas.