Design for a Knife Handle with Well-Dressed Couples

Design for a Knife Handle with Well-Dressed Couples

Johann Theodor de Bry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Panel with a knife handle design. At top, sections of ornament with a decorative bird and a monkey; below, a rectangle containing a scene with a well-dressed man in a hat and a woman walking left. At bottom, another scene of a well-dressed couple, in which the man wears a top hat.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for a Knife Handle with Well-Dressed CouplesDesign for a Knife Handle with Well-Dressed CouplesDesign for a Knife Handle with Well-Dressed CouplesDesign for a Knife Handle with Well-Dressed CouplesDesign for a Knife Handle with Well-Dressed Couples

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.