ADAM'S Country House Collections Day II - 14th October 2025

77 € 300,000 - 400,000 Total diamond weight: approximately 12.00–13.00 carats. The gold oval shell guard with its outer face bordered by chased laurel leaves, decorated in blue enamel over an en- gine-turned ground and applied with painted enamel vignettes of the fortress of Seringapatam, one depicting the city walls and temples before bombardment, the other after the assault with the breached fortifications; the inner face engraved with the presentation inscription within a laurel border: FROM THE, East India Company, To LIEUT. COL. BARRY CLOSE, Adjutant General to the Army, under the Command of, LIEUT. GENERAL HARRIS, in Testimony of their Sense, of the ABILITY, ZEAL and ENERGY, which he displayed during the, Brilliant & Successfull Campaign, in MYSORE in 1799. The steel blade of hollow-ground triangular section, finely blued and gilt, decorated at the forte with a rectangular gilt panel of linear and hatched ornament framed by foliate bor- ders, the arrises highlighted in gilt, and the flats further gilt with scrolling foliate motifs against the blued ground, tapering to a point. Blade 81cm (31½ “), overall 99.5cm (39¼”). With London assay marks and date-letter E (1800–01), maker’s mark of John Ray and James Montague. The scabbard of wood covered in blackened leather, with gold locket, middle-band and chape, each chased with laurel swags in relief, the locket finely inscribed Green & Ward, London, fit- ted with suspension rings to locket and band. The later leather-covered case, gilt-tooled to the lid Joseph Arden, Esq., the interior lined with velvet. Together with; A SILVER-GILT SERINGAPATAM MEDAL BELONGING TO LIEU- TENANT-COLONEL BARRY CLOSE (1756–1813), ADJUTANT GENERAL TO THE ARMY UNDER LIEUTENANT-GENERAL HAR- RIS England, circa 1801–02 Circular, depicting the British lion overcoming the tiger, above a standard inscribed in Arabic asadullah al-ghalib (“The Lion of God is Triumphant”), inscribed below IV MAY MDCCXCIX; the reverse showing a view of the fortress of Seringapatam with troops massing outside, with Persian inscription at the base; contained in a later circular red leather case, velvet lined. The medal 4.8cm diameter, 59.1 g. Provenance: Lieutenant-Colonel (later Major-General Sir) Barry Close, Bt. (1756–1813); by descent through his family; acquired from the descendants of Barry Close, and thence by descent. Literature: Southwick, Leslie, “New Light on Swordmakers, Goldsmiths and Jewellers: John Ray and James Montague, Active in Part- nership in London 1800–1821, with a New and Extended List of Their Known Work,” Arms & Armour, vol. 1, no. 2 (Autumn 2014). Man at Arms: The Journal for the American Arms Collector, vol. 16, no. 4 (July/August 1994). Blair, C., 1972, no. 26, pp. 26–28; p. 49, pl. 18. Exhibition: London, Zamana Gallery, Tigers Round the Throne: The Court of Tipu Sultan (1750–1799), 1990.