The Modern Antiquary
The Modern Antiquary
Your home is your castle. Design it your way.
by Battling Blades
The Cover
Where the vase
used to go
Every house has a niche, an alcove, a strip of wall beside the stairs. The catalogue answer is a vase. This issue is about the other answer, and about the fact that nobody has to approve it but you.
Above An alcove most people fill with a vase. A 38-inch longsword, centred, with a recessed downlight doing the work that a picture light does elsewhere.
In this issue
01 · The Study
Photographs by Battling Blades
Above A 38-inch blade hung horizontally beneath a landscape, centred on a 60-inch sideboard. The blade is the newest object in the room and reads as the oldest.
The room that earns it
A desk, four landscapes and one longsword. The study is the easiest room in the house to get this right, and the reasons are worth borrowing everywhere else.
Most rooms fail a blade by giving it too much wall. A study rarely does. The walls are already broken up by shelving, a window, a sideboard and framed work, so a single horizontal object has something to sit against instead of floating in the middle of nothing.
The old gallery rule is that what you hang should be roughly two thirds the width of the furniture beneath it. A 38-inch longsword over a 60-inch sideboard lands almost exactly there. Over a 72-inch sofa it drops to about half, which is why the same blade that looks composed in a study looks stranded in a living room unless you group it with something.
Height is the other half. Centre the piece 57 to 60 inches from the floor, which is the same eye level a museum hangs to, and leave six to ten inches of clear wall between the top of the furniture and the bottom of the blade. Closer than that and it reads as clutter on a shelf. Further and it drifts.
What makes the room in the photograph work is the company the blade keeps. Four small landscapes in gilt frames, a lamp, a stack of books. Nothing announces a theme. The sword is simply the object in the room with the most craft in it, and the room lets you notice that.
A blade in a themed room is a costume. A blade in an ordinary room is a decision.
The one thing worth spending on is light. Pattern-welded steel has a visible grain, and flat ceiling light erases it completely. A picture light, a directional spot or a downlight two feet in front of the wall will bring the folds up. It is the difference between a shape on a wall and something a guest walks over to look at.
If you are choosing between vertical and horizontal, let the wall decide rather than the sword. Horizontal reads as art and wants a wall wider than the blade. Vertical reads as sculpture and works in the narrow strips beside a staircase or a doorway where framed work never fits.
02 · Departments
Six rooms, six approaches
The Entrance Hall
The strip of wall beside a staircase is almost always too narrow for framed work. It is exactly right for a blade hung point down. Vertical, centred on the panel, nothing else on that wall.
The Bar
A curved sabre answers the horizontal line of a bar back better than a straight blade does. Hang it between the framed work rather than above everything, and let the sconces light it from both sides.
The Basement
Basements have the worst light in the house and the most wall. One picture light over one blade fixes both. Watch the humidity down here more than anywhere else.
The Apartment
You do not need a wall to yourself. Worked into a salon hang, a slim rapier reads as one more frame in the arrangement, and the gallery wall gives it the scale a small room cannot.
The Minimal Room
Not everything belongs on a wall. A katana on a stand, edge up by convention, sits on a credenza as an object rather than a fixture, which suits a room that keeps its surfaces clear.
The Workshop
A plaque mount is the honest choice over a bench. It reads as a tool respected rather than a weapon displayed, which is the right note in a room full of other things that get used.
03 · The Game
Chess, four ways
The set you leave out
A chess set is the only thing in a house that is furniture, sculpture and an invitation at once. It earns its place on the table by never being put away.
Left out mid-game. The strongest argument a set can make.
A panelled library. Weighted pieces, no glass case.
Double height and glass. The set supplies the detail.
Stone and timber. Marble holds its own against both.
Also in this issue
Green rooms, warm metal
Deep green walls do more for steel than grey does. Brass fittings and a low lamp finish it.
On the question of armour
A bust on a stand asks for a corner and about three feet of floor. A full suit stands seventy inches and needs a landing, not a hallway.
04 · Service
How to hang it
The part most articles skip. These are the numbers that decide whether it looks composed or looks stuck on.
- Height
- Centre the piece 57 to 60 inches from the floor. Over furniture, leave 6 to 10 inches of clear wall above the top of the piece.
- Width
- Hang something roughly two thirds the width of the furniture below it. A 38-inch blade suits a 48 to 60-inch console. Over a 72-inch sofa it needs company.
- Fixing
- Find the stud. US framing runs 16 inches on centre. A hand-forged blade weighs considerably more than framed art of the same size, and a hook rated for a picture is not rated for steel. Weigh the piece and read the anchor rating rather than guessing.
- Edges
- Most of our swords ship sharpened. Mount above head height anywhere people move through, and never low over seating where someone can stand up into it. Custom pieces can be ordered unsharpened if the room calls for it.
- Air
- 1095 and Damascus are carbon steels. They mark from fingerprints and corrode in damp air. Wipe after handling, oil occasionally, and think twice about a bathroom or an unconditioned basement. 440C stainless is more forgiving.
- Light
- A picture light or a directional spot roughly two feet out from the wall brings up the grain in folded steel. Flat ceiling light flattens it to a silhouette.
- Orientation
- Horizontal reads as art and wants a wall wider than the blade. Vertical reads as sculpture and suits narrow panels beside stairs and doorways. A katana on a stand is shown edge up.
Shop the issue
Prices, specifications and availability live in the store
The Modern Antiquary is published by Battling Blades, Deerfield, Illinois. Every piece shown is hand-forged to historical design in our own workshops. They are made now, not recovered. Rooms are photographed as design studies rather than as private residences.