Guts of holle steekbeitel met schuin uitlopende snede c. 1590 - 1596

This tool, a gouge with a skew cutting edge, resides in the Rijksmuseum, and was created by an anonymous maker at an unknown date. Simple tools such as this gouge tell a rich social history, when we consider the hands that held it and the work it performed. Visual codes such as the shape and condition of the tool speak to a specific type of craftsmanship. The lack of maker's marks suggests a possible resistance to institutional craft structures like the guild system. To better understand the historical associations of this tool, one might research the economic structures of the time and place in which it was made, such as the history of craft guilds and apprenticeship systems. The question of whether this tool challenged the existing social norms, or reinforced them, is one that a historian of art can address by looking at a range of cultural, social and institutional contexts.