FLEA TRAP BOXWOOD 19TH CENTURY.

Antique flea trap, boxwood, hand-carved, France, 19th century, height: 10.5 cm.
The flea trap is one of the favorite objects of our museum visitors. The idea that Rococo ladies used this delicately turned luxury object to capture the little pests that cavorted under their skirts is too strange. Fleas were just as much a part of everyday life back then as mosquitoes and house flies are today. The hunt for the annoying but harmless human flea led to imaginative solutions - and to gallant literary creations.

The functional principle of the flea trap is very simple. The dome-shaped lid is screw-threaded to the cup-shaped base. To use the trap, one took off the lid, put in an attractant—it could be some wool or ripped canvas soaked in honey, syrup, or fresh blood—and closed the trap again. The fleas were attracted by the smell, slipped through the drilled holes inside the trap and got stuck on the sticky bait. The conical shape of the boreholes also made it difficult for them to leave the trap again.