Rijksmuseum

Object data

boxwood (knife handle), steel (blade)

height 11 cm × width 3 cm × depth 3 cm (knife handle)
height 12.7 cm (total folded in)

Technical notes

Carved in the round (knife handle).

Condition

The blade has sustained rust damage.

Provenance

…; collection Daniel Franken Dzn (1838-1898), Amsterdam and Le Vésinet, date unknown; by whom bequeathed to the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap, 1898; on loan to the museum, since 1898

Object number: BK-KOG-1529

Credit line: On loan from the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap

Entry

During the second half of the seventeenth century, anthropomorphic-themed knife handles carved in ivory or boxwood were in great demand. Besides a wide variety of religious, historical and mythological figures, these handles also occasionally centred on everyday themes. The present clasp-knife, which features a woman beggar, belongs to this latter category. The old hunchbacked woman holds a beggar’s hat in her one hand and a spoon in the other. A drinking bottle hangs from the belt around her waist. The rendering of her caricatural, almost grotesque facial features points to an origin in Antwerp, where the farcical genre enjoyed significant popularity in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century (cf. BK-2006-19). A set of seven ornately executed knife handles, also carved in boxwood preserved at the Museum für Kunsthandwerk in Frankfurt am Main display some similarity.¹ In this case, however, each knife handle comprises a combination of two figures.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

Literature

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 271

Citation

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'anonymous, Handle of a Clasp-Knife with a Beggar-Woman, Antwerp, 1650 - 1700', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035683

(accessed 12 December 2025 12:23:28).

Handle of a Clasp-Knife with a Beggar-Woman