Toothpick

Object Type
This toothpick is in the form of an enamelled gold arm that holds a curved sickle for picking teeth. At the other end it has a death's-head finial (the decorative knob). Elaborately decorated toothpicks had a long tradition. In the Middle Ages they were often made from the claws of birds, especially the bittern, a long-legged water bird.

Subjects Depicted
The toothpick shows an ingenious use of the popular contemporary imagery of death: the arm is surmounted by a skull and holds the sickle of Father Time. Once again the message is 'Remember you must die'. The straightforward interpretation is that just as someone in the 16th and early 17th centuries might wear a pendant jewel in the form of a coffin, or wear a ring enamelled with a death's head, so she or he might use a toothpick in the form of Father Time's sickle. The certainty of death should be remembered at all times.

But would people who enjoyed William Shakespeare (1564-1616) or the ingenious poetry of John Donne (1572-1631) perhaps also have had a wry smile about the clever idea of picking their teeth with Father Time's sickle? Might they even have enjoyed the paradox that picking their teeth with the Grim Reaper's sickle would actually slow down decay?