Koummya dagger with sheath. Morocco, ca. 1900

Koummya dagger with sheath. Morocco, ca. 1900.
Steel, bone, and silver-plated metal.
Curved steel blade with openwork near the hilt. Sheath and fittings feature chiseled decoration.
It retains its suspension cord.
It shows some loss of plating and wear consistent with its use and age.
Measurements: 41 cm in length.

Provenance: Estate of Ramon Martí Alsina and Ricard Martí Aguiló.
Artistic and heritage collection originating in the legacy of Catalan painters Ramon Martí Alsina (1826–1894), a seminal figure of 19th-century Catalan Realism, and his son Ricard Martí Aguiló (1857–1935).

Passed down and enriched across successive generations, the collection brings together works from the original holdings of both artists alongside acquisitions made by their descendants. Dedicated to preserving and recovering the family legacy, the descendants actively reacquired works by the painters as they entered the market, progressively expanding the collection to encompass paintings, sculptures, archaeological artifacts, and other items of artistic and historical significance.
The pronounced curvature of the blade and sheath, combined with the bone handle and rich metal ornamentation, identifies this piece as a koummya, one of Morocco’s most characteristic traditional daggers. This example combines a narrow steel blade, progressively curved toward the tip, with a bone handle set within broad metal mountings. The scabbard follows the curvature of the blade and is covered in silver-plated metal adorned with a dense array of scrollwork and plant motifs.

The koummya was part of traditional men’s attire and, in addition to its function as a weapon, took on a distinctly symbolic character. The examples preserved in museum collections display a wide variety of combinations of steel, wood, or bone with silver, brass, or silver-plated mountings, often featuring elaborately decorated scabbards. The Metropolitan Museum holds several Moroccan daggers of this type dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, while examples very similar in materials and structure continue to be documented around 1900.