Spoon

Date1664-1665

Artist/Maker Stephen Venables

MediumSilver

DimensionsL: 5 7/16"; W (bowl): 1 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1971-237

DescriptionDessert spoon. Trefid.Label TextThe trefid (trifid, lobed-end, trefoil-top, pied de biche) spoon, its broad handle ending in a tripartite division and its oval bowl having level edges and long rattail on the underside, initiates the modern phase of spoon design. Introduced in about 1660 from France in a fully developed state, spoons of this type were referred to in 1663 as "French spoons" in the accounts of Child and Rogers, the London goldsmiths and bankers.

This is an extremely early English trefid, dating two years after the earliest recorded example. The marks, as on most London trefids, are all on the underside of the handle with the date letter on early examples, such as this, elevated above the other marks. Stephen Venables, its maker, was a prolific mid-seventeenth-century spoonmaker. It, like a number of his spoons, displays carelessness in execution with the shoulders of the bowl not symmetrical and the handle and rattail not centered with the bowl.

This spoon is of intermediate porringer or dessert size. It was during the late seventeenth century that spoons were first made in a variety of sizes and that the distinction between tea, dessert, and table spoons was established.
Inscription(s)NoneMark(s)Fully marked on underside of handle with "S V" over Dot in star burst.ProvenanceVendor: How (of Edinburgh), London
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