Coffee and tea service made by Joseph Richardson, Jr., Philadelphia, c. 1790. These objects are evidence of Philadelphia's rise to a position of laedership in the arts, despite its late start in comparison with earlier settlements in New England and Virginia. He obvously used techniques in the making of these vessels which were both old and new. Courtesy Winterthur Museum.
Provenance
Photographs from the estate of Henry Kauffman. Wintertheur Museum accession number: 57.822 - 827
Fish servers frequently have the shape of a fish, but the silversmith who made this one seems to have been imaginative and created a different form. This one shows a number of the techniques of the silversmith such as piercing, engraving and embossing. The handle of ivory is also a very attracitve feature.
A most unusual example of a folding pocket spoon made by Caesar Ghiselin, Philadelphia, 1670 - 17334. The trifid arrangement of initials can be faintly seen on the top of th handle near the hinge. they are proably the initials of the owners. The alrge initials could be those of a later owner. It is possible that the rat tail form on this spoon, as on some others, was filed instead of swaged. Courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art
Spoon made by John Vogler, silversmith working in Old Salem, North Carolina, in the first quarter of the 19th century. The iprint of an eagle was made from teh swage block with two eagle impressions on it. Courtesy Old Salem, Inc.
the frugality, or possibly better, the ingenuity of the colonial silversmith and his patron is exemplified in these objects, compined forks and spoons, called sucket forks. the word sucket is derived from succade which referred in the 15th century to fruit preserved in sugar, either candied or in syrup. The term was also used in describing vegetables which had been similarly treated.