Design for a Knife Handle with the Personification of Charity

Design for a Knife Handle with the Personification of Charity

Johann Theodor de Bry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for a knife handle with Charity personified as a full-length female figure holding a child in her left arm and another at her right side, in an oval, above a candelabrum with squirrels and snails in blackwork.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for a Knife Handle with the Personification of CharityDesign for a Knife Handle with the Personification of CharityDesign for a Knife Handle with the Personification of CharityDesign for a Knife Handle with the Personification of CharityDesign for a Knife Handle with the Personification of Charity

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.