{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O108647"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O108647/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AJ9432/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AJ9432/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AJ9432","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AJ9449","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O108647/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O108647","accessionNumber":"2315&A-1855","objectType":"Knife and fork","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"This knife blade is engraved with scenes of the Virgin and Child and the Crucifixion. The design was cut into the blade with a steel cutting tool which removed thin slivers of metal. Contemporary still-life paintings show similar knives.\r\n\r\nCutlers specialised in making blades. They trained as apprentices for up to seven years, working for a freeman cutler who housed and fed them. In England a cutler would have to prove himself as bladesmith and hafter (maker of handles) in order to obtain the freedom of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers, gain his own mark and set up his own business.\r\n\r\nMany cutlers acted as middlemen who bought blades from bladesmiths, handles from hafters and sheaths from sheathers. They assembled the cutlery themselves and sold them under their own names.","physicalDescription":"Knife and fork with handles of engraved bone chequered with mother-of-pearl. The blade of the knife is engraved with the Virgin and Child.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"bone","id":"AAT11798"},{"text":"mother-of-pearl","id":"AAT11835"},{"text":"steel","id":"AAT133751"}],"techniques":[{"text":"gilding","id":"AAT53789"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Engraved steel, with engraved bone handles and mother-of-pearl","categories":[{"text":"Metalwork","id":"THES48920"},{"text":"Tableware & cutlery","id":"THES48888"},{"text":"Christianity","id":"THES48978"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"MET","id":"THES48599"},"images":["2006AJ9432","2006AJ9449"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"116 (VA)","id":"THES49908"},"free":"","case":"DR6","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"027","id":"THES410425"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"knife (culinary tool)","id":""}],[{"text":"Fork","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"France","id":"x28849"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"possibly"},{"place":{"text":"Germany","id":"x28873"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"possibly"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1623","earliest":"1623-01-01","latest":"1623-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Length","value":"21.6","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"knife","note":"converted from measurement in register"},{"dimension":"Length","value":"18.1","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"fork","note":"converted from measurement in register"}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Bought in 1855 from the Bernal Collection for £2.\r\n\r\n<u>Provenance</u>\r\n\r\nRalph Bernal (1783-1854) was a renowned collector and objects from his collection are now in museums across the world, including the V&A. He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family of Spanish descent, but was baptised into the Christian religion at the age of 22. Bernal studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and subsequently became a prominent Whig politician. He built a reputation for himself as a man of taste and culture through the collection he amassed and later in life he became the president of the British Archaeological Society. Yet the main source of income which enabled him to do this was the profits from enslaved labour.\r\n\r\nIn 1811, Bernal inherited three sugar plantations in Jamaica, where over 500 people were eventually enslaved. Almost immediately, he began collecting works of art and antiquities. After the emancipation of those enslaved in the British Caribbean in the 1830s, made possible in part by acts of their own resistance, Bernal was awarded compensation of more than £11,450 (equivalent to over £1.5 million today). This was for the loss of 564 people enslaved on Bernal's estates who were classed by the British government as his 'property'. They included people like Antora, and her son Edward, who in August 1834 was around five years old (The National Archives, T 71/49). Receiving the money appears to have led to an escalation of Bernal's collecting.\r\n\r\nWhen Bernal died in 1855, he was celebrated for 'the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge' (Christie and Manson, 1855). His collection was dispersed in a major auction during which the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House, which later became the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A), was the biggest single buyer.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Knife and fork, with handles of engraved bone chequered with mother-of-pearl, France or Germany, dated 1623","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[{"text":"Bernal, Ralph","id":"C2927"}],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["2315-1855","2315A-1855"],"accessionNumberNum":"2315","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1855,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","knife (culinary tool)","Fork"],"assets":["2019LW3324"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-11-12","recordCreationDate":"2005-01-21","availableToBook":false}}