Carved in the round.

Good.

…; ? collection Jan Snellen (1711-1787), Rotterdam;¹¹R.J.A. te Rijdt, ‘Een ‘nieuw’ portret van een ‘nieuwe’ verzamelaar van kunst en naturaliën: Jan Snellen geportretteerd door Aert Schouman in 1746’, Oud Holland 111 (1997), pp. 22-53, esp. p. 36 and note 64. ? by descent to his great-grandson Samuel Constant Snellen van Vollenhoven (1816-1880), The Hague;  from whom acquired by the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1876; transferred to the museum, 1885

Object number: BK-NM-2928

The carving on this pair of matching cutlery handles is of good quality. One handle (shown here) features a puer mingens (urinating boy), a well-known motif originating from antiquity. Seated on his shoulders and facing the other side, two infants playfully embrace one another while being supported by a tree stump adorned with a hanging flower garland. The other handle (BK-NM-2929) is likewise adorned with the figure of a young boy standing in front of a tree stump with a flower garland, This time he is surmounted by a second little boy holding up his left leg and playing with his toes. The plump naked putti are derived from a type introduced to Baroque sculpture by François du Quesnoy (1597-1643) around 1626, while he was active in Rome (cf. BK-2014-28). This sculptural theme would remain extremely popular for more than a century after, especially in the Low Countries and France.

A pair of cutlery handles of a similar type to the present pair are preserved in Florence.²²Florence, Palazzo Pitti, Museo degli Argenti, inv. nos. 90 and 91 (inv. Bargello). Agreement observed by Dr Asche, Düsseldorf, see J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 479. Together with two other matching cutlery handles with Adam and Eve (all four on identical pedestals), these have been convincingly identified as the ‘[…] quattro Maniche da coltello di Avorio’ (four ivory knife handles) carved by Balthasar Permoser (1651-1732) for the Medici court during his sojourn in Florence, as confirmed by a payment made on 9 December 1688.³³K. Aschengreen Piacenti, ‘Documented Works in Ivory by Balthasar Permoser and Some Documents Related to Filippo Senger’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 10 (1963), pp. 273-85, esp. p. 273 and figs. 1-4; S. Asche, Balthasar Permoser: Leben und Werk, Berlin 1978, no. W18 and Dok. 4d; E.D. Schmidt, Das Elfenbein der Medici: Bildhauerarbeiten für den Florentiner Hof, Munich 2012, p. 219, figs. 155-58. Other ivory handles similarly adorned with naked putti climbing on top of one another are preserved at the Staatliche Museen Schwerin,⁴⁴K.A. Möller, Elfenbein: Kunstwerke des Barock, coll. cat. Schwerin (Staatliches Museum) 2000, nos. 74-77; compositionally, no. 74 is almost identical to BK-NM-2928. the Victoria and Albert Museum,⁵⁵London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. nos. 5578-1859, "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O111176" target="_blank">CIRC.249-1911 and -.250-1911. M. Trusted, Baroque & Later Ivories, coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 2013, pp. 428, 431, no. 450. the Louvre,⁶⁶Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. nos. OA 632 and OA 2308. P. Malgouyres, Ivoires de la Renaissance et des temps modernes: La collection du musée du Louvre, coll. cat. Paris 2010, nos. 168 and 169. and the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum.⁷⁷C. Scherer, Die Braunschweiger Elfenbeinsammlung: Katalog der Elfenbeinbildwerke, coll. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1931, nos. 495 and 496. The majority of these popular so-called huckepack Kindergruppen (piggyback children’s groups) is thought to have been produced in southern Germany, based on stylistic characteristics.⁸⁸For the iconographic tradition concerning this type of cutlery handle, as well as several stylistic influences, see E.D. Schmidt, Das Elfenbein der Medici: Bildhauerarbeiten für den Florentiner Hof, Munich 2012, p. 219. In the case of the Amsterdam handles, however, the pronounced Rubenesque sculptural treatment of the supple flesh of the chubby infants suggests a maker in the Low Countries.⁹⁹Sigfried Asche was first to suggest a Flemish maker; see S. Asche, Balthasar Permoser: Leben und Werk, Berlin 1978, caption accompanying fig. 25. In this region highly similar plump putti have been carved – in ivory as well as in other materials – by sculptors such as Lucas Faydherbe (1617-1697), Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668) and Rombout Verhulst (1624-1698).¹⁰¹⁰Cf. B. van der Mark (ed.), Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace Amsterdam/Rijksmuseum) 2025, fig. 26 on p. 73, fig. 5 on p. 92, fig. 9 on p. 180.

The museum purchased the present pair of cutlery handles from Samuel Constant Snellen van Vollenhoven in 1876. Via his grandfather Samuel had inherited much of the prestigious art collection from his great-grandfather, the Rotterdam collector Jan Snellen, including ivories by Francis van Bossuit (BK-NM-2931 and -2933) and Gerard van Opstal (BK-NM-2934).

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 837, with earlier literature; S. Asche, Balthasar Permoser: Leben und Werk, Berlin 1978, p. 25 (n. 28); R.J.A. te Rijdt, ‘Een “nieuw” portret van een “nieuwe” verzamelaar van kunst en naturaliën: Jan Snellen geportretteerd door Aert Schouman in 1746’, Oud Holland 111 (1997), pp. 22-53, esp. p. 36; K.A. Möller, Elfenbein: Kunstwerke des Barock, coll. cat. Schwerin (Staatliches Museum) 2000, under nos. 75 and 76

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'anonymous, Cutlery Handle with Three Children at Play, Germany, c. 1650 - c. 1675', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20036238