Design for a Knife Handle with a Scene of Christ Joining a Man and Woman

Design for a Knife Handle with a Scene of Christ Joining a Man and Woman

Johann Theodor de Bry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for a knife handle with Christ Joining a Man and Woman in a rectangle at center, on a blackwork background with grotesques, including a crouching satyr playing a flute at bottom. Flanking the central design, two blades engraved with passages of Matthew 19 in French.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for a Knife Handle with a Scene of Christ Joining a Man and WomanDesign for a Knife Handle with a Scene of Christ Joining a Man and WomanDesign for a Knife Handle with a Scene of Christ Joining a Man and WomanDesign for a Knife Handle with a Scene of Christ Joining a Man and WomanDesign for a Knife Handle with a Scene of Christ Joining a Man and Woman

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.