Handvat van hout, voor een paraplu of parasol, met knop van been c. 1910 - 1920

This wooden umbrella handle with a bone knob was crafted by Gustav Schnitzler, though we don’t know exactly when. I wonder what it was like to be Schnitzler, spending hours carving the wood, feeling the grain under your fingertips as you gently smoothed it. The handle is smooth, sanded down to a polished surface. I bet the knob on top, made of bone, feels cool and hard. It would have been so tactile to make! You can see the slight variations in color and texture along the length of the handle. It seems so intimate, like a quiet conversation between the artist and the material. I wonder who eventually held it in their hands, and how the object weathered the passing of time. This handle is so different from the kinds of objects that fill our world today. It feels like a portal to another time, when craft was so deeply embedded in the rhythms of daily life.