- Museum number
- WB.238
- Description
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Rosary bead; boxwood; carved; opening in two halves; upper half with Adoration of the Magi; lower half with Pietà with St James the Greater and St Ursula; figures of male and female donors kneeling at either side; on table on which they kneel are two paired shields of arms; relief floral scrolls on outside; inscribed.
- Production date
- 1510-1525 (circa)
- Dimensions
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Diameter: 4.90 centimetres (lower half)
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Diameter: 4.30 centimetres (upper half)
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Height: 4.30 centimetres (closed)
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Height: 2.30 centimetres (open)
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Length: 5.20 centimetres (closed)
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Length: 9.70 centimetres (open)
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Weight: 23 grammes
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Bart Ibelings (2019) discusses the source of the inscribed texts as follows: 'omnia dat Dominus non habet ergo mi[nus]' (The Lord provides everything and yet has nothing less) noting that this is in pentameter, and must be the second part of a distichon (poem of two verses = hexameter + pentameter). The same line is found on a 1531 painting by Jan van Scorel (1495-1562) of a scholar at the Latin School (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, inv. 1797) and is accompanied by a further passage 'Quis dives? Quis nil cupit. Quis pauper? Avar[us]' (Who is rich? He who desires for nothing. Who is poor? The miser). Both lines come from Erasmus of Rotterdam, who was a pupil at the Gouda Latin School between 1487-1493, and therefore also a contemporary of Jacob and his father.
The text which can be read on the object's interior when in open state is drawn from Matthew 2:2.
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Provenance: Baron Anselm von Rothschild, Vienna, by 1866 (cat no. 51).
Commentary: The paired arms are those of Jacques de Borsele [Jacob van Borselen/Borssele], c1470-1521, Constable of Gouda, and of his wife Ursula de [van] Foreest, c1470-1525, who are shown kneeling as donors. Ursula came from Delft where her father was a councillor, alderman and burgermeister. See Read 1902 for possible earlier identifications of the arms.
Comparisons are a prayer nut in the Rijksmuseum which also has Delft associations (inv. no. BK-1981-1) with an inscription on the outside identifying the owner as Evert Jans van Bleiswijk of Delft (1460-1531) and with two coats of arms for Evert and his wife, Erkenraad von Groenewegen. This example has its original metal case and velvet pouch. Also compare an example in the V&A (inv. no. 225-1866) with blank paired arms and silver fittings, see Paul Williamson, 'Netherlandish Sculpture 1450-1550', London, 2002, no. 48.
Bibliography: Charles Hercules Read, 'The Waddesdon Bequest: Catalogue of the Works of Art bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P., 1898', London, 1902, no. 238, pl.XLIX; O.M. Dalton, 'The Waddesdon Bequest', 2nd edn (rev), British Museum, London, 1927, no.238; Richard Marks, 'Two Early 16th Century Boxwood Carvings Associated with the Glymes Family of Bergen op Zoom', in Oud Holland, Jaarg. 91, No. 3, 1977, p. 140; Paul Williamson, 'Netherlandish Sculpture 1450-1550', London, 2002, p.140; Evelin Wetter, 'Zwei spätmittelalterliche Betnüsse aus den südlichen Niederlanden', in Monographien der Abegg-Stiftung Bern, 15, Abegg-Stiftung, Riggisberg, 2011, p.58; John Lowden and John Cherry, 'Medieval ivories and works of art : the Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario', Art Gallery of Ontario, Seattle, 2008, p.138, p.142; Dora Thornton, 'A Rothschild Renaissance: Treasures from the Waddesdon Bequest', British Museum, London, 2015, pp.168-171, F.Scholten, ed., Small Wonders, Amsterdam 2016, pp.276-279, fig.127.
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Image: Group photograph depicts from left to right. the registration number: WB.236, WB.235, and WB.238.
- Location
- On display (G2a/dc16)
- Acquisition date
- 1898
- Acquisition notes
- This collection is known as the Waddesdon Bequest under the terms of Baron Ferdinand Rothschild’s will.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- WB.238
