Pair of steel knives with ivory handles in a shagreen case

An image of Cutlery/Pair of knives and case. Unknown handle maker and case maker. Unidentified cutler. Object probably either German or English. Ivory, silver, enamel and steel, shagreen and white metal; each knife has a steel tapering blade and ivory handle of circular section with silver ferrule and terminal cap. Both ivory handles are inscribed and decorated with scrolls and tulips in inlaid silver wires and red enamel . Knife A is inscribed 'AN: GOTTES: SE / EN: IST: ALLES' and knife B is inscribed 'GELEGEN / ANNO: 1674'. The case (C) is of wood covered with unpolished pearl ray shagreen with a white metal mount to the tip. It has a pull-off lid, is of lobed oval section and tapers to a point. Length, knife A, 13.5 cm, length, knife B, 13.3 cm, length, case, 17.3 cm, circa 1674. English.

Terms of use

The low-resolution images published on this Website are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY-NC-ND). For more details: Fitzwilliam Terms of Use

This licence does not include any images of works that are still in copyright. Artistic copyright extends from the life of the artist to 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist died.

Download this image

For further information on use of images or to license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who can discuss terms and fees.

Cutlery/Pair of knives and case. Unknown handle maker and case maker. Unidentified cutler. Object probably either German or English. Ivory, silver, enamel and steel, shagreen and white metal; each knife has a steel tapering blade and ivory handle of circular section with silver ferrule and terminal cap. Both ivory handles are inscribed and decorated with scrolls and tulips in inlaid silver wires and red enamel . Knife A is inscribed 'AN: GOTTES: SE / EN: IST: ALLES' and knife B is inscribed 'GELEGEN / ANNO: 1674'. The case (C) is of wood covered with unpolished pearl ray shagreen with a white metal mount to the tip. It has a pull-off lid, is of lobed oval section and tapers to a point. Length, knife A, 13.5 cm, length, knife B, 13.3 cm, length, case, 17.3 cm, circa 1674. English.

Image data

Accession Number: M.51A-C-1930
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/32.0
Focal length: 120
Camera: Hasselblad H3DII-31
Photographer name: Jaymes Sinclair
Image height: 554 pixels
Image width: 1024 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.6 (Macintosh)
Filesize: 115.83kB
Exposure time: 1/125
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 32/1

Key words

17th Century Date Department English Fitz_AA German Material Medium Nationalities Object Type Other Keywords Workflow _WF_AdOK _WF_KWD _WF_OPACtd _WF_PCtd blade case cutlery cutlery set enamel enamelled floral flowers handle handled inscribed ivory knife knife handle shagreen steel tulips

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025)
            "Pair of steel knives with ivory handles in a shagreen case"
            Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-187491 Accessed: 2025-11-19 11:30:44

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-187491
            |title=Pair of steel knives with ivory handles in a shagreen case
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-11-19 11:30:44|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/images/media-187487

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa30/M_51A_C_1930_1_201406_jas244_mas.jpg"
        alt="Pair of knives and case"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Pair of steel knives with ivory handles in a shagreen case</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>