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Notes on a Carved Wooden Knife-handle in the British Museum
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
Extract
The knife-handle to be considered here is said to have been found fifty or sixty years ago at Brinkhill, Lincolnshire. It is 4·6 in. in length, pierced longitudinally, and carved on all sides with a representation in high relief of the Tree of Jesse.
Jesse is shown seated on a chair with upright back and the side ornamented with linen panelling, his right arm on the arm of the chair, his head resting on his hand. His left arm encloses the trunk of the tree, which issues from his breast, the branches extending scrollwise to receive the other figures, which are thirteen in number culminating in the crowned Virgin seated with the Child.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright The Society of Antiquaries of London 1926
References
page 159 note 1 The knife-handle is but little damaged: the moulding round the upper edge is chipped in places, and has disappeared in the section illustrated in figs. 3 and 4; certain of the sceptre-heads have suffered, and the stem of one is almost entirely wanting, the hand that held it being lost (fig. 2, top, centre). In some of the spaces between the carved portions are traces of staining, and it is a question whether this may not have served as a base for colouring or gilding, which was common on wood-carvings, and on ivories and alabasters.
page 159 note 2 L'Art Religieux de la Fin du Moyen Age en France, second edition (Paris, 1922), p. 82Google Scholar.
page 160 note 1 Ritter, and Lafond, , Manuscrits à peinture de L'École de Rouen, Rouen and Paris, 1913, p. 55Google Scholar. Schreiber, W. L., Biblia Pauperum (Bibliothèque Nationale) (Strasburg), 1903, p. 42Google Scholar.
page 160 note 2 Ritter, and Lafond, , op. cit., pl. lxix, 2Google Scholar.
page 160 note 3 Bond, Francis, Wood-Carvings in English Churches, vol. ii, p. 127 (Oxford, 1910)Google Scholar.
page 160 note 4 Musée de Cluny, Le Bois, pl. xix and li.
page 160 note 5 Musée de Cluny, as above, pl. xviii.
page 160 note 6 Didron, , Annales Archéologiques, xvi, 235Google Scholar ff. The carving is in the form of the letter F, in boxwood, the initial of Francis I.
page 160 note 7 Hefner-Alteneck, , Trachten, Kunstwerke und Gerätschaften, vol. vi, no. 390 (Frankfurt, 1884)Google Scholar.
page 160 note 8 Enlart, C., Manuel d'archéologie française, iii, p. 135 (Paris, 1916)Google Scholar.
page 161 note 1 A harp of similar form is seen on a stall at Rouen Cathedral. Langlois, E. H., Stalles de la Cathédrale de Rouen, pl. x, 64 (Rouen, 1838)Google Scholar.
page 161 note 2 Laking, G., European Armour and Arms, vol. ii, p. 218 (London, 1910)Google Scholar.
page 161 note 3 This is seen, for example, in the Beatus-pages of the Huntingfield Psalter, English, late twelfth century, now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. See Cat. of MSS., etc. in that library by M. R. James, London, 1906. The sword figures in the representation of the Judgement of Solomon.
page 161 note 4 Howard, F. E. and Crossley, F. H., English Church Woodwork, p. 339 (London, 1917)Google Scholar.
page 161 note 5 Archaeological Journal, lxxviii (1921), pl. xiv, facing p. 248Google Scholar. Cf. also a sixteenth-century altar-piece from the Abbey of St. Riquier, in the Musée de Cluny. Musée de Cluny, as above, pl. xii.
page 162 note 1 They are somewhat strangely included in a satirical composition into which obscene subjects enter. See Maeterlinck, L., Le Genre Satirique … dans la Sculpture Flamande et Wallonne, pp. 107 ff. and pl. ii (Paris, 1910)Google Scholar.
page 162 note 2 Figures on stalls in Bristol Cathedral show resemblances in physiognomy and costume to certain of those on the British Museum carving. In Arch. Journ., lxxviii (1921), pl. xii, no. 18, facing p. 246Google Scholar, one can see a facial resemblance between the right-hand figure and that on our fig. 3, top centre.
page 162 note 3 Laking, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 34.
page note 4 Hefner-Alteneck, op. cit., vol. v, pl. 319, J.