page_title: Prayer nut
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Prayer nut / Etymology
context_page_description: Prayer nuts, or Prayer beads are very small 16th century small Gothic boxwood miniature sculptures, mostly originating from the north of today's Holland. They are typically detachable and open into halves of highly detailed and intrinsic Christian religious scenes. Their size varies between the size of a walnut and a golf ball. They are mostly the same shape, decorated with carved openwork Gothic tracery and flower-heads. Most are 2–5 cm in diameter and designed so they could be held in the palm of a hand during personal devotion or hung from necklaces or belts as fashionable accessories.
  Prayer nuts often contain central scenes depicting episodes from the life of Mary or the Passion of Jesus. Some are single beads; more rare examples consists of up to eleven beads, including the "Chatsworth Rosary" gifted by Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon, which is one of only two surviving boxwood rosaries. The figures are often dressed in fashionable contemporary clothing. The level of detail extends to the figure's shields, jacket buttons, and jewellery. In some instances, they contain carved inscriptions usually related to the meaning of the narrative.
context_section_description: The English term Prayer nut is derived from equivalent Dutch word gebedsnoot, and took on common usage in the 18th century. The use of the word "nut" may come from the fact that some of the beads were actually carved from nuts or pits, and although no such miniatures survive, it was a known practice in medieval southern Germany.
caption: Man holding a prayer nut, by or after Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Jan Gerritsz van Egmond d. 1523). Bailiff of Nieuwburg \n*oil on panel \n*35.5cm \u00d7 26.2cm \n*1518", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "160", "Image YResolution": "160", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.12", "Image DateTime": "2012:12:20 19:59:01", "Image Artist": "workshop of Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen", "Image Copyright": "https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/SK-A-3838", "Image ExifOffset": "670", "Image XPAuthor": "workshop of Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen", "Image XPSubject": "[74, 0, 97, 0, 110, 0, 32, 0, 71, 0, 101, 0, 114, 0, 114, 0, 105, 0, 116, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "806", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6106", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1646", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2227"}