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Lot Essay
The arms featured are those of Jacob Jacobsz Bicker (1581-1626) and his wife Anna Roelofs de Vrij (c.1589-1626) whom he married on 11 June 1608.
Cutlery sets were a common wedding present in the Lowlands in the 17th century, the present lot being a particularly early example. This knife and fork were presumably a wedding gift from the Roelofs family to the newly married bride Anna Roelofs (1589-June 1626), the daughter of Roelof Egbertsz (d.1619) burgomaster (mayor) of Amsterdam in 1611, 1614, and 1617, and Grietgen Jansdr Valckenier (1553-1621).
Jacob Jacobsz Bicker (1581-1626) was a wealthy merchant in Amsterdam whose patrician family, known as the Bickerse league, played an important political role during the Dutch Golden Age, opposing the House of Orange and striving for the abolition of stadtholdership and the full sovereignty of the individual regions comprising the Republic of the United Seven Netherlands. Jacob worked for the family business founded by his uncle Gerrit Bicker (1554-1604), an international grain merchant and brewer and one of the founders of the East India Company, which provided the family a strong position to trade across the globe. Upon his death, Jacob left a substantial estate estimated at 375,000 florins (J. E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, Amsterdam, 1963, vol. 1, p. 359).
The Waddesdon Bequest holds in its collection a nearly identical knife (WB.201) also dated circa 1608 with the arms of De Bordes and of Commelin of Amsterdam, as well as a wedding knife and fork (WB.203) dated 1600-1700, both were bequeathed to the British Museum by Ferdinand Anselm Rothschild (1839-1898).
Cutlery sets were a common wedding present in the Lowlands in the 17th century, the present lot being a particularly early example. This knife and fork were presumably a wedding gift from the Roelofs family to the newly married bride Anna Roelofs (1589-June 1626), the daughter of Roelof Egbertsz (d.1619) burgomaster (mayor) of Amsterdam in 1611, 1614, and 1617, and Grietgen Jansdr Valckenier (1553-1621).
Jacob Jacobsz Bicker (1581-1626) was a wealthy merchant in Amsterdam whose patrician family, known as the Bickerse league, played an important political role during the Dutch Golden Age, opposing the House of Orange and striving for the abolition of stadtholdership and the full sovereignty of the individual regions comprising the Republic of the United Seven Netherlands. Jacob worked for the family business founded by his uncle Gerrit Bicker (1554-1604), an international grain merchant and brewer and one of the founders of the East India Company, which provided the family a strong position to trade across the globe. Upon his death, Jacob left a substantial estate estimated at 375,000 florins (J. E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, Amsterdam, 1963, vol. 1, p. 359).
The Waddesdon Bequest holds in its collection a nearly identical knife (WB.201) also dated circa 1608 with the arms of De Bordes and of Commelin of Amsterdam, as well as a wedding knife and fork (WB.203) dated 1600-1700, both were bequeathed to the British Museum by Ferdinand Anselm Rothschild (1839-1898).