Priem c. 1590 - 1596

This is a small, anonymous, metal object of unknown date, now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. The museum calls it a 'priem', or pricker, suggesting that it was once used for making holes. The question for the social historian is, what can this object tell us? Firstly, that museums, as institutions, tend to classify and order things according to their function. Secondly, that even seemingly simple tools reflect particular social and economic relations. Was this, for instance, used to create a leather product? What was the status of the person who owned and used it? Was it a slave? Or was it someone who had the status of a free artisan? If the latter, were they operating within a guild structure? To answer these questions we would need to research probate inventories, guild records, and visual representations of craft workers in the period and place where it was made. The meaning of this 'priem' is thus dependent on social and institutional context.