IMPORTANT, FIGURATIVE KNIFE HANDLE OF A YOUNG NOBLEMAN WITH A HUNTING FALCON French or northern European, around 1400. The handle worked from bone or boar's tusk in the shape of a young nobleman in a long, flowing robe. He wears his hair combed back in waves and ending in a roll. On his right arm a falcon, which he is feeding with his other hand. L 8.5 cm. Multiple cracks and fissures, the end of the blade chipped. Rare and early figurative knife handle depicting falconry (falconry), which probably originated in Central and Central Asia and was also very popular with the nobility in the European cultural area in the Middle Ages, symbolising the courtly world. Corresponding motifs can also be found on boxes, furniture and in ornate manuscripts (see Iris Kolly. Artful Cutlery - A Selection from the Collection of the Basel Historical Museum. Basel, 2006. p. 13). Cf. for a similar handle whose iconography takes up that of the nobleman with bird: Metall für den Gaumen, Bestecke aus den Sammlungen des Österreichischen Museums für angewandte Kunst. Riegersburg Castle, 1990, p. 25, fig. 6). The object is still attached to the blade. Another fine example can be found in the collection of the Solingen Blade Museum (inv. no. 2006.M.028). A stylistically related but somewhat simpler example can be found in the Marquardt collection: see Klaus Marquardt. European cutlery from eight centuries. Stuttgart, 1997. p. 24, fig. 28.