Set of six teaspoons and sugar tongs with case
Date1750-1755
Marked by
John Wirgman
OriginEngland, London
MediumSilver (Sterling)
DimensionsBowl L: 1 5/8"; W: 15/16"; OL: 4 3/8"
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1954-563,6
DescriptionTeaspoon: long, oval bowl with rounded drop and foliate scroll cast in relief on back. Stem with rounded end. The front elaborately chased with C-scrolls and flowers.Label TextThese spoons are decorated in the rococo taste, their handles chased with scrolls, shells, and flowers and their bowls stamped with beaded and foliated scrolls. From middle to late eighteenth century the bowls of spoons, especially teaspoons, were stamped with a variety of decorative and pictorial devices and subjects. This, like the raised decoration on lace-back trefids, was achieved by hammering the bowl into a swage cut with the design. Known as fancy-back or picture-back spoons, most examples are of "Hanoverian" type, their popularity diminishing with the use of various decorative border treatments, principally feather-edged and bright-cut, on the handles of "Old English" spoons during the last quarter of the century. The chased decoration on the handles of these, although typical, is less frequently encountered than the decoration of the bowls.
Part of a handwritten label (EG. / Spoons / gar Tongs, / ged to M.rs Ray / my Mother) remains on the interior of the cover of the case.
Lord Botetourt, who served as governor of Virginia from 1768 to 1770, owned a similar set: "1 Shagreen case containg 8 Chas'd silver tea spoons and 1 pr of tongs" is listed in "His Lordship's Bed Chamber" in the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg in the 1770 inventory of his estate. Another "30 Tea spoons" are listed with the "Plate, in the Pantry."
MarkingsBack of stem: lion passant and script I.W in oblong.
ProvenanceGarrard & Co. Ltd., London (purchased from C. J. Vander Ltd., London, 1954)
Exhibition(s)
1759-1760
1762-1763
ca. 1778
ca. 1778
ca. 1778